Julie Ruin
by psapfo
Summary: We spent such a lot of time fighting each other before we knew who really needed to be fought.
1. Prologue

**I. Prologue**

_Breathe in._

_Don't think._

_Breathe out._

_Don't think._

_Breathe in._

Julie and Remus were sitting side by side on the bed, legs tucked under the blankets, mugs of tea in their hands. They were both staring straight ahead, as though they were watching television, but the wall was blank, greyish-green. Cracks in the paint.

Her hands were shaking. "I should have killed her."

Remus shook his head. "You couldn't have. I'm sorry, but you're not that good."

"I should have killed her."

They were both quiet. The clock on the wall ticked unnaturally loudly.

Julie tried to sip her tea and poured it down her front. She swore.

"Hey, hey, it's fine!" said Remus, jumping up, taking both the mugs and setting them on the table. He ran to get a cloth and started wiping up the mess.

"I'm sorry—I'm sorry—my hands won't stop shaking—" Julie covered her face.

"No, it's okay. Julie! It's fine!"

Suddenly she was breathing fast and hard, her gray eyes wide. "It was my fault—Marlene—Sirius—Frank and Alice—all of it—I should have _killed _her!"

She tried to jump up and Remus tried to grab her shoulders. "Julia Martha—Julie—no—"

Julie gasped in air, shuddering with the effort to breathe. "_I had her on the floor with a knife at her throat and I should have killed her!"_

Finally Remus managed to get a hold of her. "Listen to me," he said hoarsely. "_None of it was your fault._"

She let him push her back against the bed, but more because she was tired than because she was listening to anything he had said.

"Pass me my cigarettes."

Remus raised his eyebrows. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm bloody sure," said Julie.

He picked up the pack from the bedside table, slipped one out and handed it to her. She put the cigarette between her lips, but her shaky hands and breath made it impossible to light. Mutely she held the cigarette and lighter out to Remus. He sighed and lit it for her.

"Does it ever occur to you," said Remus, watching her take a drag, "that your friends all know how to light a cigarette and none of them smoke, because you make us light them all for you?"

Julie started to laugh, wildly, and then coughed a few times. "Remus—you're my only friend. They're all dead!"

He froze for a minute. "Jesus."

They sat silent. Julie blew smoke across the room and Remus screwed up his face.

"Remus."

"Yeah?"

"I can't remember anything."

He frowned. "What do you mean?"

"All I can think about is Bellatrix Lestrange. I can't remember what came before."

Remus moved closer to her. "Yes, you can. You can remember. Tell me about when you were a kid."

Julie looked blank.

"Amanda. Your sister, tell me about Amanda."

She sighed, and blew smoke.


	2. The Wave

**BEGINNING OF PART ONE**

**II. The Wave**

She remembered a dim room, and her father, who seemed very tall, lifting her high in the air. She was four, and twelve years later she would stand at exactly his height. He laughed and tossed her in the air, and she—little Julia—was screaming with joy, pale hair flying. When she was six, her father moved to America, alone.

She remembered her cousins' paddling pool, on a bright day in Ottery St. Catchpole. Mya and Kate King, they were named, and they were older and bossier, so Julia hit Mya for calling her a swot.

She remembered Amanda, tiny Amy crawling across the floor, Amy walking and talking.

And she remembered the first time she used magic. She was at the ocean with her mum and Amy. Amy had a white sunhat that made her look like a mushroom, and Julie had a new red swimsuit. Margaret, their mum, was sitting on the pebbly sand, just watching the horizon. Julie hopped through the breakers with Amy for a bit, but she was seven and Amy was just four, and she didn't want to spend all her time with such a baby. She struck out alone, aiming for a craggy black rock rearing out of the sea a ways away.

It was farther than she thought, of course. But Julie was a strong swimmer, and fearless, with her clumsy breaststroke (or frog stroke, as her mother taught it.) She swam slowly but steadily for a good ten minutes before she reached the rock. It was slippery and hard to climb onto, and she cut herself on the black stone, but she was stubborn as well. Finally she stood up. There were a few dismal pieces of seaweed clinging to the tiny island, and a seagull circled above. When she turned and looked back to shore, it took her a moment to spot her mum. She had stood up and was looking out towards Julie. Amy was still hopping about in her puffy white hat. Julie waved at her mum, and she waved back, shouting something, Julie could tell. She didn't care. She was by herself now, and she liked it. She turned away and sat down on the scratchy, silt-covered rock, and stared out to sea. A sailboat was passing by.

A splashing surprised her, and she spun around, scraping her legs. Margaret had swum after her, and she was fast, long legs scissoring, arms pushing herself through the water like a badger pushing through earth. She grabbed on to the rock's edge.

"_Julia Martha!_" she hissed. "Couldn't you hear me calling you back? What were you thinking, swimming out this far?"

"Mum, no!" shouted Julie. "I can swim, I wanted to be by _myself!_ " And suddenly she saw a wave coming towards her, _away from the beach_, ripples madly colliding, turning around and growing in size, until it crashed down on her mother's head.

In the silence that followed the breaking of a wave, Julie sat with her mouth open. Then she sprang up, suddenly worried, but Margaret had already surfaced, spluttering, hair plastered to her face.

"Mum—sorry—I don't know how that happened—"

"I know," said Margaret grimly. "Come on, you can hold on to my shoulders on the way back."

They were both silent as they swam back, Julie meek and ashamed, Margaret thoughtful, with her mouth set in a forbidding line. Amy was still hopping through the breakers, still looking for all the world like a mushroom in her little white hat, just as if nothing had changed.

* * *

><p>Amy showed her magic much earlier than seven, and in much smaller ways. Maybe when she was five, they started to notice strange things about her. Toys that had been lost for weeks would reappear without explanation. When she got raspberry jam all over herself, it was gone by the time Margaret dragged her to the bathroom. She learned how to read in just two days, and once, when she had hurt herself and was crying, a shower of silver sparks came down from her bedroom ceiling.<p>

Everything was easier for Amy. She never picked fights in the schoolyard, coming home bloody and triumphant, holding another girl's tooth, the way Julie did. (Margaret told her to throw it away, but she kept it, put it in the shoebox under her bed.) Amy never got enough detentions to earn herself a suspension. (Margaret made Julie do schoolwork every day of the week she was out, until seven at night.) In fact, Amy never earned any detentions at all. She was good at controlling her magic and keeping it secret. Julie, however, once mysteriously ended up fifteen metres high in a tree, while being chased by a group of her many enemies. She tried to say that she was simply a very fast climber, but the fact remained that half the schoolyard had seen her at the bottom of the tree one second, and ten seconds later at the top, and no one was that fast. She wasn't punished, simply because there was no school rule that she seemed to have broken, but she was viewed with a great deal of suspicion after that.

In fact, Julie didn't really make many friends at school. She would sit with the boys in her year, who tolerated her because she was good at football and had beaten most of them in fights. But none of them really interested her. Amy, on the other hand, was friends with everyone in her nursery school, and then with everyone in primary school. For Amy's birthdays, Margaret made lemon cake and had nine or ten little girls and boys come to their house. For her birthdays, Julie got a ten-pound note from her mother and a ride into Inverness, where she would buy herself as many books as she could afford.

And then when the expected letter came on her eleventh birthday, Julie thought her mum might have gone into the bedroom for so long just to cry. She'd gone into the washroom and wet her eyes and pulled back her composure, but there are only so many times you can go to sleep in your mother's lap and not learn her face—learn how her mouth crumpled a little bit when she was upset, her cheeks paled when she was angry, her eyes crinkled when she smiled.

Amy was excited. She ran around and around the house, three rooms on the bottom floor, and then she thundered up the stairs and down again. Julie read through the two sheets of paper over and over again.

_…you have been accepted…witchcraft and wizardry…wand…may not own a broomstick…_

"Where do I get all this stuff?" she asked suddenly.

Margaret took the list out of her hand and held it up to the light. "London."

"Really," said Julie sarcastically. "They sell magic wands, in London."

"Yeah, they do," said Margaret.

Amy stopped bouncing. "Can I get one?"

_"No!"_ said Julie and Margaret at the same time.

Amy frowned at them.

It was April, Easter holidays. They stayed in a small hotel in Uxbridge, and they took the Underground to all the touristy places—Hyde Park, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square and Julie's favorite, the Tower of London.

On Friday Margaret took them into the busy center of town. Crowds of ordinary-looking people rushed by. The shops were large, shiny and new. Julie scanned the street, looking for anything that seemed magical at all. Her mum kept a firm hand on each daughter's shoulder as she marched them towards a large record store. But they didn't go in—instead, Margaret pulled the girls over to a small, dingy pub, one that Julie hadn't even noticed at first. The Leaky Cauldron, she read to herself from the sign.

A small bell tinkled. The pub was dim and shabby, with five or six odd-looking people sitting at the rickety tables. A tall, stooped man was behind the bar, wiping and putting away glasses. He peered at them.

"Is that—Margaret Fraser!" He put down the glass in his hands and smiled. "It has been a _long_ time."

Julie and Amy turned and stared at their mother. She had never mentioned the fact that magical people might know who she was.

Margaret smiled tight-lipped. "Tom. Yes, it has, I'm afraid, but no time to catch up. We're heading to Diagon Alley."

Tom nodded and gestured them around the bar. He followed them into a small courtyard, empty aside from a few dustbins. Julie wondered if perhaps they would have to climb into them.

"Shopping for yourself or the kids?" asked Tom.

Margaret clearly didn't want to prolong their conversation. "Kids," she said, jerking her head toward her older daughter, "Julie's going to Hogwarts."

Tom inclined his head at Julie. "Congratulations."

"Thanks," replied Julie very quietly.

Tom tapped a brick on the wall with his wand. The girls stood wide-eyed as an arched doorway opened up. But their mother was unmoved, hands on the girls' shoulders, face set.

Margaret Fraser, Muggle, led her daughters into a brave new world.

**A/N: **This story is also on ao3. My user name there is psapfo as well and it's usually updated sooner over there. I'm keeping it up to date here though since I have a couple readers on here! This is a fresh edit of the first few chapters as of 3/19/16, if you are rereading and see a few spelling changes that's why. Thanks for reading and especially thanks for reviewing-it makes me so happy.


	3. Hello and Goodbye

**III. Hello and Goodbye**

Six months in Inverness is a long time. Six months with a wand in your attic, an ebony, dragon heartstring wand that you can't use, and a barn owl in your bedroom. Julie passed the time by reading her new schoolbooks, again and again and again. She learned the names of hundreds of magical herbs, memorized spells, and devoured histories of magic. Names of goblins and giants and sorcerors got jumbled together in her head. She poked through her potion ingredients, until one day she lit a handful of bat wings on fire, scorching the kitchen floor, and Margaret took her potions kit away.

Real life was less important. She played football with the boys at school and scraped by in her classes, but even science, formerly her favorite class, had lost any luster. Why make things blow up with baking soda when you could do it with magic?

Spring slowly turned into summer. Summer crawled by. August arrived, and Margaret bought Julie a trunk, helped her neatly pack her books and robes. Late in the month she sat her daughter down and told her what she needed to know. First, she explained what a Muggle is. (Margaret herself.) Then Muggleborns, pure-bloods, half-bloods. (Julie's father; and this was very odd to Julie, because she had visited him in New York just a year ago, and she had seen no sign of magic.) And then she told her daughter that there was a wizard who started gaining power in Britain, a wizard whose name most people didn't like to use, a wizard who seemed unstoppable. Voldemort.

Julie—eleven. She practiced punches on people she didn't like, and she wasn't afraid of anything.

People are stupid when they're young.

And here she was, on the platform. Looking around, trying to discern her future classmates through the steam. Snippets of conversation floated past her.

"I'm going to need a new broom..."

"Pauline, for God's sake, you can't wear that..."

"...Ministry's completely useless on the matter..."

"CISSY! Over here! Cissy..."

Amy reached over and took Julie's hand, bouncing up and down a bit with excitement.

"All right, well, this is it," said Margaret uncomfortably. "Can you get the trunk on the train yourself?"

"Sure," said Julie, eager to be gone. She stood on tiptoes so her mother could kiss her cheek, hugged Amy haphazardly, and lugged her trunk away, owl cage balanced precariously on top. She turned once and looked back and her family was already gone.

Two boys rushed past her and jumped up onto the train. She could hear an owl screech somewhere.

Julie took a deep breath and started to heave on her trunk. As she bumped it into the train she felt part of the weight lift up—someone had taken the other end. A girl Julie's age, with brown skin and curly hair.

"Hi," she said nervously. "I'm Mary, Mary Macdonald."

"Julia, but people I like call me Julie."

"Nice owl." The owl in question blinked his yellow eyes as he was carried onto the train and edged into the corridor. "Where are we taking this?"

Julie shrugged.

"You can sit with me," said Mary, both politely and nervously. She set the trunk down and let Julie drag it while she went ahead with the owl.

Mary led her about halfway down the train to her compartment. In that time they established that they were both first years, Mary had already put her things in the compartment, and yes, that was a Scottish accent Julie had—"you got a problem with that?"

"No."

There were two girls in the compartment already, a few years older. One of them smiled and introduced herself right away.

"Alice Montague, this is Maggie Porter. We're fourth years."

Alice had a round, friendly face and honey blond hair, while Maggie had dark skin and tons and tons of braids.

They sat down and made themselves comfortable. Alice and Maggie were talking about their classmates, gossiping about who had gone where and done what over the summer.

The Hogwarts Express started with a lurch, and suddenly London was speeding away. Julie and Mary sat silently while the older girls chattered, and the train rattled along. Around lunchtime a witch came in with a cart and Maggie bought Pumpkin Pasties and Chocolate Frogs for everyone, even the first years. They were better than any Muggle candy Julie had ever had.

The door slid open with a bang. A girl and a boy walked in, neither making eye contact with anyone.

The girl was a redhead, Julie saw with interest, but her hair was much more vivid than Julie's copper-gold, and her eyes were brighter as well, emerald green. Her face was slightly flushed and a little puffy, as though she had just been crying. The boy was thin—scrawny, to be honest, with an unkempt look and lank black hair falling over his eyes.

"Is there room for us?" asked the girl.

"No—"

"Sure."

Julie and Alice spoke at the same time. The older girl sprang up, pushing her coat away and nudging Maggie to the side. Maggie rolled her eyes as she moved over, but she was smiling.

"What are your names?" asked Alice kindly. Julie was shocked to see the poisonously scornful look the boy gave her, but his ginger friend didn't seem to notice.

"I'm Lily, this is Sev."

After a long pause, Alice and Maggie started to tell the younger students about the Sorting. Eventually the conversation devolved into a fight about which house was better—Hufflepuff (Alice's) or Gryffindor (Maggie's).

The train sped on, the sun crept across the sky.

That night, the five girls in the Gryffindor dormitory went straight to sleep, tired and full. Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Mary Macdonald, Niamh Fairchild, Julia Fraser. (Three of them wouldn't live past thirty.) An owl circled the tower, beating soft wings, silent as a ghost.

And what else do you need to know? What is Hogwarts like for anyone? There were classes, and feasts, and Quidditch matches. Julie got good grades most of the time, and terrible grades sometimes, and once she accidentally destroyed a library book. There were summers in Scotland, and her mum insisting she learn Muggle history and science, and there were Christmases at Hogwarts, and Marlene burning her fingers every year when they toasted things in the common room fire. And there was sex, starting in fifth year for Julie and Marlene, later for most of the others. And there were worse things—jinxes and hexes and rumors, rumors about certain students with a mark on their left forearm.

We can skip that. Let's begin in sixth year, before the first death.

You know what it's like. The important thing to remember is this: people are stupid when they're young.


	4. Contact

p style="text-align: center;"strongIV. Contact/strong/p  
>p dir="ltr"The summer of 1976 was unusually warm, and the grass was a little brown. Margaret set her daughters to poetry—John Donne, Shakespeare, Marlowe—and taught them French and German. Julie spent her off time smoking and sitting around with Ian Forester, the latest in a series Amy liked to call Julie's Boy of the Summer. The smoking was a secret—her mother was, like most mothers, not really a fan of recreational drug use—so she spent a great deal of time with Ian, trying to stay out of her own house.p  
>p dir="ltr"Technically they could have taken the bus into Inverness proper, but it was a fifteen-minute walk followed by a half-hour ride, and more often than not they were too lazy.p  
>p dir="ltr"It was an odd summer. Not for the first time, Julie realized that her mother was keeping secrets. Amy was more irritable than usual, and she spent an unusual amount of time in her room. And Julie, of course, was more often than not out late at night, going to parties, sometimes, or just sitting with Ian and his mates having a beer, blowing smoke into the night air, talking about punk rock or Scottish independence. The three Frasers were growing apart, splintering into separated silence, and often they would only see each other all together at meals.p  
>p dir="ltr"One day in the middle of August Julie and Ian were lying on their backs in the grass. Across the road the two Aiken boys were messing around with their brand-new BB guns, shooting at sparrows and missing, alternately laughing and swearing. Ian turned his head to look at her. He had very dark blue eyes and freckles, and he always had a very earnest expression on his face, which was both endearing and sometimes a bit frustrating.p  
>p dir="ltr""When are you going away?"p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie didn't answer for a bit, concentrating on the cigarette in her hand, the swirl of the smoke that was hardly visible against the bright sky. Finally, seeing no way to avoid it, she said, "August thirtieth."p  
>p dir="ltr""I still don't understand why I can't write you," he said quietly.p  
>p dir="ltr""Told you, the school isn't registered with the post office. Anyway—what are you worrying about this for? We've three weeks!" She sat up and stubbed the cigarette out against the ground, frowning.p  
>p dir="ltr"Ian sighed. "You know, Julie, sometimes I think—"p  
>p dir="ltr"emBANG.em/p  
>p dir="ltr"A gunshot cut him off, followed by a horrible screeching noise. Andrew Aiken had hit something, and it wasn't a sparrow.p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie sprang to her feet and took off running. Ian spluttered and scrambled to his feet, but she was already vaulting over the low stone wall and dashing across the road.p  
>p dir="ltr""What the hell d'you think you're doing? Bloody morons—don't touch it—don't touch it!" The boys jumped back in alarm and Julie stumbled to her knees, out of breath. She had guessed right. It was an owl the boys had shot down, and now it was struggling on the ground. By pure luck the bird had been hit right in its chest, and luridly bright blood was pumping out.p  
>p dir="ltr""Get away, go away, you stupid idiots!" Julie muttered, carefully slipping her trembling hands under the soft, feathery body and praying the boys hadn't noticed the small scroll tied to the bird's leg.p  
>p dir="ltr""That's our bird!" said Robbie angrily.p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie looked murderously at him, and he cowered away.p  
>p dir="ltr""Shooting an owl is emillegalem. It's the queen's bird!" She was too sure of herself for them to argue. Bird in hands, frighteningly limp, she turned and bumped into Ian./p  
>p dir="ltr""Did you just say owls are the queen's bird?" he asked, a bit out of breath. "I'm pretty sure that's swans."p  
>p dir="ltr"She huffed and walked around him. "Not now, for god's sake."p  
>p dir="ltr"He started to say something else but then she fairly ran, cradling the bird to her chest at the same time as she maneuvered the scroll off its talon. Ian could wait, and he would wait; he was that kind of boy.p  
>p dir="ltr""Mum? Mum!"p  
>p dir="ltr"The door clattered shut behind her. Margaret walked out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron.p  
>p dir="ltr""What?"p  
>p dir="ltr"Mutely Julie held out the owl. It was still now, no more than a warm bundle of feathers, and it left a shockingly bright red stain across the front of her t-shirt. Margaret didn't waste a single word. She went into the kitchen, her daughter following, and spread out a clean dishtowel on the table. Julie set the bird down gently on the cloth and stood back while her mother went to work. She washed her hands well and then pulled a pair of tweezers out from a drawer. She lit the stove and passed the tweezers through the flame, sterilizing them. Then she sat down in front of the bird and, with a surprising gentleness, began to run her fingers through the feathers. Julie looked on in slight horror as her mother plucked out the small pellet that had caused all the trouble. It was dripping with blood, and Margaret's fingers were red as well. She could feel bile rising in her throat, and she forced herself to look away.p  
>p dir="ltr"It was with some surprise that she looked down and realized she still had the little scroll in her hand. It had been smashed in her hand, and when she unrolled it the spidery, angular script was a bit smeared.p  
>p dir="ltr"em—Meggie,em/p  
>p dir="ltr"emYou shouldem/p  
>p dir="ltr"She only read three words before Margaret's hand covered the rest. She had her eyebrows raised in silent disapproval, and Julie grimaced and let the note go. Margaret frowned as she read the paper, and then she crumpled it up into a ball and dropped it into the trash without a second glance.p  
>p dir="ltr""She doesn't know what she's talking about," she muttered, turning, going back to the owl. Outside, the short spell of sun was ending. The sky was growing gray and hazy. In the distance, the gunshots had started again.p  
>hr   
>p dir="ltr"Another day, the phone rang. Julie and Amy were sitting in the kitchen, eating marmalade sandwiches, and Margaret was upstairs. "Julie, can you get that?" Margaret yelled. "I'm expecting a call from Fiona." Fiona was a pleasant, middle-aged woman, Margaret's friend—of a sort. They were civil to each other, anyway, and traded clippings from their gardens.p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie slid off her stool, licking her fingers clean and wiping them on her jeans. She lifted the phone off the wall.p  
>p dir="ltr""Hello?"p  
>p dir="ltr""I'm calling for Margaret Fraser."p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie frowned. It wasn't Fiona. First, it was a man, and second, he clearly wasn't local—he spoke with a crisp southern English accent, which immediately put him under suspicion.p  
>p dir="ltr""Yeah, who's this?" asked Julie, about as politely as you can say something like that.p  
>p dir="ltr""This is Alexander Potter."p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie's eyebrows shot up. "Alexander what now?"p  
>p dir="ltr"There was an audible sigh on the other end of the line. "Alexander Potter...you probably know my son."p  
>p dir="ltr""Right."p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie set down the phone. "Mum!" she called. "James Potter's emdadem is calling for you!"/p  
>p dir="ltr"Margaret came downstairs, looking as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, and took the phone. Julie sat back down at the counter and went back to her sandwich, listening very hard and trying to appear as if she wasn't.p  
>p dir="ltr"Margaret turned away from the girls and started to speak.p  
>p dir="ltr""Hello? Yes, this is she...sorry about that...I see...No, that wasn't my plan...Of course. No, I understood the risks...exactly...thank you very much, Alec. No, you don't. I'll be in touch. All right...fine. I'll call you...goodbye."p  
>p dir="ltr"She slammed the phone into the receiver, her mouth set in a straight line. "Bloody fool doesn't know his own business," she said, and without another word she went back upstairs. Julie and Amy sat still as the sound of footsteps retreated. Then they stood up and put their plates in the sink.p  
>p dir="ltr"Julie went outside and lit a cigarette. Long, deep breaths. Then she went off to find Ian.p 


	5. No Problem Problem

**V. No Problem Problem**

"Look at Snape!"

Mary had to shout directly into Julie's ear in order to be heard. The whole school was cheering, a few hats flying into the air. The Sorting had just ended, Professor McGonagall had carried the hat out of the Hall and Dumbledore had stood up, arms spread wide, eyes shining.

"What?" shouted Julie back at Mary, equally impossible to hear.

"Look at Snape!"

She turned. Snape was looking in their direction, not joining in with the cheers (although his whole table was a deal quieter than the other three) his black eyes intent. Julie followed his gaze along the Gryffindor table to Lily Evans, who was sitting with Marlene and a few sixth years, laughing and whooping. Her hair had grown out to her shoulder blades over the summer, and her cheeks were flushed.

"What a fucking creep," said Julie in Mary's ear.

"Yeah, he gives me the shivers," the other girl replied, with a bit more delicacy.

The tables quieted down. Dumbledore's smile widened.

"In these troubled times," he said in a carrying voice, "there are many things that must be said to all of you. None of them should be heard on an empty stomach. Eat up!"

He sat down. The students cheered again, a bit more subdued.

Food appeared on the golden plates, and Julie grabbed for the mashed potatoes.

"D'you reckon the new Defense teacher will be any good?" said Mary with the air of one determined to make conversation.

Julie looked up at the staff table. There was only one unfamiliar face—a thin, blond man of indeterminate age, poking fastidiously at his roast beef.

"He looks sort of—spindly," offered Julie.

Mary rolled her eyes, apparently disappointed in Julie's observation.

They sat in silence for a while, any awkwardness masked by the clattering of forks and knives and the loud voices of the other students, before Mary tried again.

"Have a good summer?"

"Great, yeah."

"Good."

There were loud, gleeful shouts coming from the other end of the table—someone had spilled pumpkin juice all down the tablecloth. Behind them, two Hufflepuffs were screaming with laughter. The enchanted ceiling darkened steadily, and Julie concentrated on her food.

When the last crumbs of pudding had vanished from the golden plates, Dumbledore stood up once more. There was a sudden, sharp rise in the noise level of the students, and then quiet.

"Now that we have all eaten our fill, I have a few announcements to make," the headmaster began, .

"Once again, we have a new staff member. Professor Abbott will be teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts this year."

There was a polite round of applause for Professor Abbott, who half-stood and nodded rather feebly.

"Now, on to more serious matters: as all of you should be aware, the Wizarding World is currently at war against a man who styles himself Lord Voldemort."

There was a collective shiver across the hall. Every eye was now on Dumbledore—except, Julie noticed, Evan Rosier and Oliver Wilkes, who were thumb-wrestling at the Slytherin table. Farther down, Aurelia Malfoy was picking at her nails, and to her other side, sitting by himself, was Regulus Black. He was giving his complete attention to the headmaster, thin face intent and focused.

"Most of you also know that over the summer several of Voldemort's followers escaped from the wizard prison, Azkaban," Dumbledore went on, surveying the hall over his half-moon glasses. "In light of these circumstances, particularly stringent security measures have been implemented here at Hogwarts. Irksome as they may be, I ask that all of you please be mindful of the new rules, particularly those forbidding all students from wandering the corridors or the grounds at night. Let me also remind you that entering the forest unsupervised is strictly forbidden."

Someone coughed loudly a little ways down the table. Julie thought it might be Sirius Black, because it was definitely Remus Lupin who shushed him.

"Students in the third year and older are still allowed to visit Hogsmeade," the headmaster continued, "but there are several Aurors stationed in the village and at the school gates. Mr. Filch will be searching for any Dark items as students go in and out of the castle—a full list of these, comprising some four hundred and fifty seven items, can be found on Mr. Filch's office door."

"The Ministry of Magic and the staff of Hogwarts have gone to great lengths to ensure your safety; I am sure everyone here will make sure that their efforts haven't been wasted."

He paused, looking around the hall, and then smiled. "And now I am sure you are all ready to go to bed, so good night to all!"

There was a pause, as though everyone was startled by the abrupt shift, and then the students broke out into a loud, excited chatter as they stood up.

"I didn't know," said Julie to Mary over the colossal scraping of benches.

"Didn't know what?"

"About the Death Eaters who escaped this summer. I didn't know."

"Don't you read the wizarding newspapers?" Mary asked, not unkindly.

Julie let out a short laugh by way of an answer.

"Decius Bagnold was killed as well," Mary was saying. "Head of the Department of Mysteries. And—oh! There's Emma. I have to go."

Mary hurried off to meet a blond fifth year, and Julie left the Hall alone. Lily was ahead of her, chivvying along a straggling line of first years. Someone crashed into Julie, a Hufflepuff boy, and he ran off without apologizing. She stood still for a moment, uncertain, surrounded by a stream of black robed students, and then, spotting a familiar, very messy head of black hair moving up the grand staircase, she took off, ducking under a seventh-year's outstretched arm, following the rest of the Gryffindors down a long corridor.

"Hey, James! James!"

The boy turned around. As usual, he looked a bit as if he'd just stuck his finger into an electrical socket, his hair sticking up every which way, his glasses a bit crooked on his nose. He grinned easily at Julie, and motioned for his friends to keep going without him.

"I wanted to ask you something," said Julie, and then stopped. She couldn't quite think of how to phrase her question. James stood there waiting while the crowd thinned out around them.

"What?" he said finally, mystified.

Julie shook her head to clear it. "You know what? It's not important. Did you make team Captain?

"Yeah, I did," said James proudly. "Tryouts on Saturday."

"Oh god," groaned Julie, "you aren't making the whole team try out, are you?"

"No, of course not, but we still need a Keeper. I want everyone there, so we can see how the new person fits in."

"Right."

He stood there for a moment longer, unsure as to whether the conversation was over or not. Finally he said a little awkwardly, "Well, see you around, Fraser," and left.

Julie muttered a swear to the empty corridor. What about this was so hard? It was a simple question—_do you know what your dad called about? Do our parents know each other? _She felt as though she was missing something—this was important, really important, and she didn't know why, and she didn't want to share it with anyone until she figured that out. Besides, she didn't like talking about her family with other people—and these days it could be dangerous.

The footsteps of the students tramping off to their dormitories had long ceased to echo through the corridors when Julie shook herself out of her thoughts and started to move. Something about the empty halls made her anxious, and after passing just a few classroom doors she started to run.

* * *

><p>Julie woke up first the next morning, as she usually did, slipping out of the dormitory before seven o'clock. The Great Hall was not even half-full. Remus Lupin was sitting at one end of the Gryffindor table, nose in a book, and at the other, Chris Thwaite, Julie's boyfriend of last winter. She sat down rather closer to Remus and helped herself to scrambled eggs and porridge.<p>

Niamh Fairchild swung herself down onto the next seat, and Julie turned to her in surprise. She had been relatively close with Niamh for most of the last five years—closer than she had been with any other girl, certainly. (Marlene was a twerp, in Julie's estimation, Lily was a swot and a smart-aleck, and even Mary had a certain holier-than-thou air about her.) Near the end of fifth year, however, Niamh had just stopped talking to her.

But here she was, looking to both sides as if to make sure they were alone, and then saying in a low, earnest voice, "Julie, can I tell you something?"

"I guess so," Julie answered, a little coldly.

Niamh poured herself a goblet of pumpkin juice and then stared into it for a bit. Then she looked Julie in the eye and took a deep breath to speak.

"Niamh!"

She looked around. Siobhan was sitting at the Ravenclaw table, waving her sister over.

"Sorry, gotta go," she mumbled, and jumped up, leaving her goblet behind.

"What was the…bloody point then…" Julie trailed off.

"Was that Niamh Fairchild?" asked someone behind Julie. Sirius Black had stopped behind her and was watching Niamh move across the room with narrowed eyes. "I thought she wasn't talking to you."

"What's it to you?" Julie retorted. It was too early in the morning to be polite. (Julie's schedule went something like this: midnight to noon was too early for niceties; noon to midnight, too late.)

He shrugged elegantly, brushing his hair behind his ear, and she found herself wondering whether he practiced the gesture in a mirror.

"Her sister's dating Mulciber."

Julie let out a short laugh. "No, she's not."

He raised his eyebrows.

"Mulciber looks like a toad," she added, to clarify. "No one in their right mind would go out with him."

Sirius shrugged again. "I heard otherwise."

She raised her eyebrows in turn and then went back to her breakfast. It didn't really matter to her who Siobhan Fairchild chose to spend time with, and her porridge was getting cold. She felt, rather than saw, Sirius move on, walking to the other end of the table.

She snuck a look at the Ravenclaw table. Siobhan was talking to her sister, almost whispering in her ear, and Niamh was frowning, fiddling with the marmalade rather than look Siobhan in the eye.

And then Professor McGonagall was upon her with a stack of schedules, and Julie let it pass.

"Here you go, Miss Fraser, everything seems in order," she said.

Julie took the offered paper without a word.

_Monday, 9:00 AM. Potions._

She grimaced—she didn't dislike Potions, but she couldn't stand Professor Slughorn—and then stood up, slung her bag over her shoulder and hurried out.

There were already a few Slytherins waiting outside the dungeon, and Julie pulled a book out of her bag to avoid having to talk to them. As the other students arrived chatting amongst themselves, Julie buried herself in _The Woman in White _and ignored them all.

A few minutes after nine, Professor Slughorn opened the doors to the dungeon from the inside. "Come in," he said genially, his bald head shining.

The students stepped inside rather nervously. There were four cauldrons sitting on the teacher's desk, all merrily bubbling away and emitting variously colored smoke, or steam. Julie sat herself down in her usual desk in the back corner and traded her novel for her Potions textbook.

"Now, if you'll all direct your attention this way, I've prepared something rather special…"

The door clicked open and shut. Professor Slughorn looked up, saw who it was, smiled, and continued.

"...just to show you what sort of things will be expected of you at the NEWT level."

"Hi."

Julie looked around. It was Lily Evans, speaking in a quiet, breathy voice, standing next to her desk at the back of the dungeons.

"Can I sit with you?"

Julie took a moment to process this. She should have realized, of course, that Lily wouldn't sit in the front and center with Snape anymore, that they wouldn't be partners in everything. And of course she, Julie, was sitting at the only desk with one empty seat—but she liked sitting alone, she chose to sit alone.

"Sure."

Lily sat down and started to arrange her ingredients by size and color. If nothing else, thought Julie, this would probably bring her Potions grade up.

"Why're you late?" whispered Julie.

Lily shushed her, but not very strongly. She seemed more out of breath than anything. Julie rolled her eyes.

"Pay attention!" hissed Lily.

Julie scowled, opened her textbook to the required page and began to draw Professor Slughorn in the margin. She was a terrible artist, but her subject mostly required a lot of circles—round head, round stomach…

_Mum would kill me if she knew I was drawing in class_, she thought, and she actually started to listen to the lecture.

* * *

><p>Even though the sixth years had fewer classes, they had more work than ever. Their long breaks were filled with endless essays and thick textbooks, and by the end of the first week most of them were starting to worry about their absurd amounts of homework. The sixth year dorms already had a post-Easter break sense of tangible stress—"and this is the first week!" Marlene McKinnon would moan daily before setting aside her textbooks and going outside with her broomstick. Julie stayed in, writing far into the night, when the common room was emptied of all the younger students. When the notice was posted for Keeper tryouts on Saturday, Julie thought about practicing (she hadn't flown all summer) and then she let Mary nag her into writing her History of Magic essay instead. <em>I'll practice Saturday morning,<em> she told herself, and she started to avoid James in the corridors, just in case he was thinking of asking her if she was ready for tryouts.

Of course, James generally made himself hard to avoid.

"Oops! Sorry, Scottie."

Julie looked down at the parchment airplane sitting smugly atop her Potions essay. She lifted it and breathed a sigh of relief—the ink had already dried, and nothing had happened to her homework.

"The wings aren't balanced," she snapped and tossed the airplane back at James.

"Right you are," he said easily, catching it and beginning to unfold it.

Julie was sitting alone against the wall, and James was sitting by the fireplace with the usual suspects—Sirius, Remus and Peter. A few seventh years were sitting in a group across the room, and Samantha Vickens, the Gryffindor Seeker, had fallen asleep with her head on a table. Other than that, the room was empty.

T_he twelve uses of dragon blood, discovered by Albus Dumbledore throughout the nineteen-forties…_she would like to fall asleep as well—it was late, she had not slept more than six hours in one stretch the whole week, and anyway Potions had always been one of her least favorite subjects…

_...fine, red ink…_there was a stain on the table in front of her, perhaps it was blood_…removes magical stains…_would dragon blood remove a bloodstain though? _… finally, as an oven cleaner…_ Julie tried to imagine Albus Dumbledore cleaning his oven, long silver beard trailing on the linoleum_…But we turn to the seventh use now, that of a strengthener in various Potions …_her eyelids were fluttering, her vision blurring…

One of the seventh years sneezed very loudly. Julie's head snapped up.

"Get it together," she muttered to herself. She stood up, trying to clear her head, and walked over to the window. The grounds were dark and shadowy, the trees on the edge of the Forbidden Forest waving in the light breeze, as if they were grasping for something. A perfect crescent moon hung over the forest, lending a flat, surreal light to the whole scene.

All was still, and with a small sigh she returned to her chair, riffling through the pages of her textbook until she found her place again. _…a strengthener in various Potions, of almost unparalleled effectiveness…_

_Surely there's a more effective way to do my homework._ Mary had finished hours ago and gone to bed, and even as Julie read the same line for the third time, Remus was standing up from his chair, stacking his books and saying his goodnights. The seventh years stood up and went to their dormitory as well, and then Peter was leaving as well, after breaking his quill tip for the fourth time.

The fire was crackling and Samantha Vickens was snoring softly. Sirius and James were whispering to each other as they looked over a parchment together.

Julie had just decided to give it up for the day and go to bed when she heard a small shuffling on the girls' staircase. She looked up. Her sister was stepping cautiously into the room, sleepily rubbing her eyes with her fists. Amanda was wearing her blue flannel pajamas and her auburn hair, a few shades darker than Julie's, was pulled back into a loose braid.

"Hey, Julie," she said softly, coming up to Julie's desk.

"Mm?"

"Can I tell you something?"

"Yeah, get on with it," said Julie.

"I heard a couple Slytherins talking today, and one of them said something kind of weird." Amy was pulling at the hem of her pajama shirt—the lowest button was coming loose.

"Who?"

"Mulciber, I think, and Snape. They were talking about Dumbledore's speech—you know, how he said that entrances to the castle are being guarded and that packages coming in are being inspected—"

"Oi," Julie cut her sister off by grabbing the hand she was picking at her shirt with. "Stop doing that. _Reparo_." The button reattached itself. "All right, carry on."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Anyway, then Snape said something—something like, there are other ways to get in, without getting past the Aurors."

"Is that it?" said Julie dismissively. "He's an idiot, he was probably just trying to impress his nasty friends."

But Amy still looked troubled. "No, I don't think so," she said very firmly.

"Hang on—Snape said what?" said a new voice. James had gotten up from his chair and come over to the table without either of the girls noticing. Sirius was standing behind him with a very bored expression.

Julie closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair, sighing theatrically. "It's none o' your business, Potter."

"It's Amy, right?" said James pleasantly, brushing Julie off completely.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry—d'you mind—could you tell me what you heard?"

Amy gave the older boy a probing look, and apparently he passed her test, because she told him. "He said that the Aurors don't know every way into the castle. And then Mulciber said something I couldn't hear, and then Snape said something about—about how anyone could tell, because, um, because you and your friends have all that illegal stuff from Zonko's," she finished apologetically.

James exchanged a very dark look with Sirius and then turned back to Amy.

"Well, your sister is probably right that he's just—you know—bragging—but if you hear anything else you should let me know."

Julie stretched her foot under the table to gently kick James on the shin.

"Er—let Julie know," he finished awkwardly.

"Right," said Amy. She took a moment to make a face at her sister before she turned to go. Her braid swung behind her, even as a pendulum, as she jogged up the staircase.

There was a thick silence.

"Well," said Julie.

"You _idiot_, Padfoot," hissed James with unexpected anger. Sirius, stony faced, flicked his gaze from Julie to James, a clear _not in front of her_ look.

Julie leaned her head back to look at the two boys, stretching her legs languidly. They were both wearing extremely shifty faces.

"So," she said delicately. "Are there ways into the castle that the Aurors don't know about?"

"Of course there are," she answered herself. "Snape would be right—that would be how you lot smuggle all the sweets and alcohol in."

Neither James nor Sirius said anything. Samantha Vickens, however, let out a massive snore, and all three of them jumped and then threw her dirty looks.

They took a moment to recover themselves before Julie spoke again. "And Snape does know about these secret passages?"

Sirius shook his head just the tiniest bit at his friend, but James grimaced apologetically and said, turning to Julie, "Yeah, he does."

"So he could get out of the castle whenever he wants..."

"It's worse than that, actually," James cut in. "He could let anyone in, too, if he told them. Which means—"

"Death Eaters," said Julie heavily. "The Death Eaters have a way in." She thought about that for a while and then looked up at the boys. "You both look very guilty," she pointed out.

"It was kind of our fault," Sirius explained. "Kind of my fault, actually."

"Nice," smirked Julie, and Sirius narrowed his eyes at her. She jumped to her feet, pushing her tiredness aside. "So, possible solutions. You could modify Snape's memory…although I suppose you'd have to modify Mulciber's as well. And God only knows who else Snape told. You could set off a load of dynamite in the passage and collapse it…"

"No, you really couldn't," said Sirius quellingly. Julie scowled at him.

"Actually," said James thoughtfully, "This might not be a problem at all. No, I'm serious!" he added before Julie could interject. "Even if people could get past the gates, they'd still have to get from there through the actual castle door, and there must be defenses there, right? And—Dumbledore knows about the passages."

"Oh," said Julie. She blinked. "Well, I s'pose that's all right then."

James yawned and then turned to Sirius. "You know Remus is going to kill you."

"Yeah, sure," said Sirius with an ugly expression on his face. "I'm going to bed." And he turned and walked over to the boys' dormitory stairs, pounding his feet on the steps a little louder than necessary.

James looked after him with equal parts irritation and fondness on his face.

"Well," said Julie quietly, "I guess I should go too."

"Should we wake up Samantha?"

Julie considered the sleeping girl. "I'm not going to. You know what she's like in early morning practices. Listen, if you hear anything weird about Snape, tell me."

"Ditto."

Somehow, Julie thought as she made her way up the long, winding staircase, she doubted James would actually tell her if he did hear anything about Snape. She wasn't quite sure that she would tell him either. She changed and brushed her teeth in the dark, and before she went to bed she walked passed Niamh's bed to the window. The wind had picked up, and the trees on the edge of the forest were bending and swaying.

She turned and went back to her own bed. It wasn't until she was curled under the covers with the curtains drawn, drifting off, that she realized that she wasn't the only girl who had stayed up late. Niamh Fairchild's bed was empty.


	6. Fractures

In the morning Niamh had returned, sleeping peacefully with a lock of hair in her mouth, and Julie, looking over the girls' beds, thought they belonged in a nursery rhyme. _Five little girls, sleeping in a row_—except one of them wasn't sleeping, one of them was leaving on light cat feet, escaping before the rhyme ended, just a flash of pale hair before the door closed.

She left the common room alone.

Quidditch tryouts were no more painful than usual. At least, this year, they were only looking for one player. Their last Keeper, who had also been Captain, had graduated. James got to show off his Nimbus 1000 and his friends got to sit in the stands and wolf-whistle, Peter with a little unnecessary puffing.

It was a lazy day, the sun very brilliant, the sky very blue, the next school week very distant, and the other four girls scattered across Hogwarts.

Marlene was on the Quidditch pitch as well. She had been a Chaser for three years, just the same as Julie. In fact, the two girls spent a great deal of time together, considering they really weren't particularly fond of each other.

Mary was sitting in the library, writing an essay on the giant wars that was only due on Tuesday. She was also eavesdropping, listening to a few seventh years talk about the news. _They killed eleven Muggles in Yorkshire,_ said one. _Me cousin's thinking about joining 'em_, said another. _It's a bad business, all around_, said a third. Mary dipped her quill in her inkpot and began to cover her page in neat, glistening letters. _It was the bloodiest battle of the 1281 giant wars, _she wrote. It had taken her a while to get used to feather pens, and she still didn't know what wizards had against ballpoints, but now the quill was natural to her, an easy extension of her arm, and the words slid out smoothly, almost as fast as she thought of them.

Niamh was in the Owlery, speaking in a low, angry voice to her sister. They weren't identical twins—Siobhan had darker hair, Niamh's eyes were lighter and a little farther apart—but when they stood like this, face to face, their profiles were like mirror images, wide forehead, blue eyes, small chin. Or like an optical illusion—now it's two faces, now it's a candlestick.

"You can't make me do anything I don't want to do!" said Niamh, who would have shouted if her voice hadn't been trembling so much, for fuck's sake, get a hold of yourself Niamh.

"What _do _you want to do?" asked Siobhan meanly.

Niamh gulped.

Lily was sitting on the side of the lake, tossing pieces of toast in the water. She hadn't spent enough time by herself recently, she thought, and then wondered why on earth she thought that, since she had really done nothing but spend time by herself. She had spent most of the summer walking, going in circles around and around her neighborhood, trying to avoid Petunia and trying to avoid Severus, just in case he might think of coming over to talk to her again. Her own home had become alien to her, and it had been a relief to get back to Hogwarts, to relax into the routine that was strangely normal for her. At last she had something to focus on, her classes, her prefect duties, and then she started to miss the pounding rhythm of her feet, going through and through and through her city. So she had to go outside, just to get away, to let her mind expand again.

Sometimes the giant squid would eat toast, but today it wasn't appearing. She tossed the last piece in her stack, a good throw, far into the middle of the water, and something threw the soggy toast back so that it spun. It landed at her feet with a _splat_.

"Figures," sighed Lily, not even sure what she meant, just a bit bitter. And then she sat, watching the flickering of the beech tree's leaves above her, listening to the clapping and cheering coming from the small crowd watching the Gryffindor tryouts.

* * *

><p>The Gryffindor Quidditch team was widely thought of as the coolest kids in their house, and thought of by themselves as the coolest kids in the school. First, there were the Chasers: James Potter, tall and skinny and not exactly carelessly handsome, but he was the best player the team had had in years, and he certainly had the expected ego; then Marlene McKinnon, beautiful and bouncy and loved by (almost) everyone, with a talent for very close passes; and Julia Fraser, who scared everyone a little bit and no one more than the opposing team—ruthless and perfectly unafraid. Then the Beaters: Will Preston and Brandon Douglas, best friends since first year. Samantha Vickens was the Seeker, the youngest on the team, only a fourth year, and very petite, almost wispy, but sharp-eyed and fast. By the end of the day they had the final member of their team, Kiran Singh. The new Keeper was "fit" in Marlene's words, with his smooth dark skin and big black eyes, but he also made some very good saves—and they only had to try out twenty-seven other applicants.<p>

By three o' clock in the afternoon, Julie no longer wanted to see any of her teammates ever again, but unfortunately that wasn't an option. James gathered them around and gave them their practice schedule.

"Four practices a _week_?" said Samantha incredulously. "There's no way."

"I know it's going to be a challenge," said James. "But we need to work hard if we want to win the Cup this year. We might have got it last year, but we can't take it for granted this year. We're going to have to make sacrifices."

Unfortunately, thought Julie, as James looked fiercely around at his team, nobody enjoyed making sacrifices for Quidditch quite as much as James Potter did.

So they started to practice for hours at a time, Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, rain or shine. It would have been easier to be annoyed at James, Marlene pointed out, if he didn't work twice as hard as anyone else, but somehow Julie still managed it, spending several weeknights finishing homework late and grumbling about him with Will Preston.

Niamh didn't try to talk to her again. Julie had intended to keep an eye on her, try to figure out what was going on. She was curious, but she was also angrier than she would care to admit about the way Niamh had cut her off last year, and she had a tiny, guilty desire to get Niamh in trouble. But somehow what with all the homework and Quidditch and the tracking mud through the castle after practice in the pouring rain and the resultant fury from Filch, she—well, she didn't _forget _about Niamh, but she just moved the situation to the side of her mind. It was, after all, a pretty small situation.

Everyone seemed to be getting involved in a lot of small situations, that whole miserable, drizzling September. The most memorable of these, perhaps, involved James and Sirius inflating a Ravenclaw's head to twice its normal size. Unfortunately, Lily Evans witnessed the whole incident, and promptly gave them both detentions, relishing the job a bit more than a prefect really should.

Severus Snape also had a situation. The trouble was, he knew something. This, in itself, was not bad—it really ought to be good. He had spent the better part of these five years feeling as though he was almost always being one-upped by the people he called his friends. First there was Lily, and Lily outshone everyone around her—but she did it so gracefully, she did it so beautifully, that only the very pettiest of souls would not love her for it. And Severus Snape did, in fact, have a petty soul, but not that petty. And then there were his housemates, Mulciber, Avery, Jugson, Bulstrode. And they had interests in common, certainly, (albeit rather dull interests, purifying-the-wizard-race sort of interests) but Severus had never really felt any sort of—_closeness,_ per se, with any of those boys. In fact, he felt himself in some sort of competition with them, a competition that he, Snape, had nearly always lost. He was uglier, poorer, from a worse family, less popular, and generally less comfortable than any of the other boys he spent his time with. The place he outstripped his "friends" was in the classroom—but if there was one thing he had learned, it was that nobody but _nobody _cared about grades.

And then, in fifth year, a new area of competition opened up, when Caius Mulciber told them, in confidence, that his father was a Death Eater, had been for a good four years already, and that he, Caius, intended to join the Dark Lord as soon as he graduated. So they had something new to talk about, something new to argue—which one of them could be the most useful to Lord Voldemort?

Jugson, who was of a practical bent, pointed out that it would be a very unusual seventeen-year-old who could be useful to anybody at all, least of all one of the most powerful wizards of all time, with dozens of loyal wizards and legions of fearsome Dark creatures at his side. But that didn't stop the ambitious of Slytherin House (and plenty in other Houses as well—but those come later, don't worry) from paying close attention to the war, from muttering to each other, comparing news sources, discussing what the Death Eaters might do next, what they would do in their place, who might be the next victim.

Back to Severus Snape, who had a situation. Because finally, _finally_, he had something on his supposed friends. He had a piece of information—a _useful _piece of information. He knew something that he was not supposed to know. This was an opportunity for him, the kind of opportunity that he never received, and he had no space for mistakes. If he was the one to actually lead the Dark Lord _into _Hogwarts, he would never have to worry about being shown up by anyone else, not for the rest of his life. At least, that was his hope. There were, of course, specific people he was hoping to impress, but his thought process did not go into that much detail—a vague _that will show them _was enough motivation. He did not think about what he was trying to show, or to whom.

And then, like a fool, he had gone and almost told Mulciber. He had not quite given everything away, had managed to withhold the crucial details—but the cat was out of the bag now, the clock was ticking, and Severus Snape had to make a decision. Was he really prepared to betray the promise he had made to Albus Dumbledore, betray, more importantly, the walls of his own home, Hogwarts, for the sake of potential glory? Could he accept not passing on his secret, knowing that he could have made a name for himself and did not? And how long, how long could he delay making his decision, knowing that Mulciber might find his secret, take his opportunity, remove the self-righteous burden of choice?

He had already figured out the logistics. He could write Lucius Malfoy, who had graduated Hogwarts only a few years ago, and meet him in the village. He would not tell Malfoy how to get through the passage, _(Hey, Snivellus, wanna find out what happens in the Shrieking Shack? Just prod the knot, right there, just take a long stick, you can crawl inside, it's easy...)_ no, certainly not—he would insist upon being brought in front of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named himself.

It was beautiful, just it ought to be, that Sirius Black's pathetic trick should backfire so catastrophically. Poetic justice. But still, something held Severus back, something kept him from writing his letter, finding a school owl. (Once upon a time he would have borrowed Lily's.) Perhaps it was simply the joy in holding his knowledge over everyone else's head. If he put events in motion, if he carried out his secret threat, he would no longer have this golden power. Nobody cared about Severus Snape, but he could destroy them all. He could, he really could.

* * *

><p>On the morning of the first Quidditch match of the season, Marlene and Julie both woke up just before six o' clock in the morning. Julie woke up at that time because that was when she always woke up, even if she had gone to sleep very late the night before. Marlene, however, usually woke up as late as possible. She was suffering from nerves.<p>

She sat up very suddenly and looked at Julie across Lily's bed. She was slightly gray in the face.

"If you need to puke, I suggest the bathroom," said Julie helpfully. Marlene rolled her eyes and immediately clapped her hands to her mouth.

She didn't actually need to throw up. She just needed to sit on her bed for thirty minutes and stare into space, and then she felt as good as new. When Marlene finally went down to the Great Hall, at least an hour after waking up, Julie was already there, sitting with James, Will and Brandon. They were all talking and joking very loudly. James and Julie were more successful at hiding their nerves—Will kept tapping his fingers on the table, Brandon flinched a little bit every time a Gryffindor cheered or a Hufflepuff (the opposing team) booed.

After Samantha stumbled in, bleary-eyed and bedraggled, James started to talk about the match.

"All right, so the main threat from Hufflepuff seems to be their Seeker, this Mona girl—she's a relative unknown, she was sick all last year, but I've heard she's very good—and of course making her Captain after she played just one game last year shows a lot of confidence. I don't think they're a match for us in other respects, though—Belham is rubbish, Fawley is even worse, so that shouldn't be a problem for Kiran—hang on, where's Kiran?"

"Oh God, here we go," muttered Will.

"I'll go look for him," Brandon offered.

"Right," said James, turning to the remainder of the team. "Conditions are pretty good, sun not too bright—bit of a wind, Will, Brandon, you'll want to take that into account—"

"You'd think he hadn't spent the whole month dragging us onto the pitch every fucking day of the week—" Julie muttered to Will, and he laughed. Luckily James didn't overhear.

"Let's get on the pitch," said James finally.

The team stood up and trooped out into the Entrance Hall, to thunderous applause and booing. Just as they reached the doors, Brandon Douglas came running down the staircase, dragging Kiran Singh by the elbow.

"Sorry, sorry—" Kiran began to gasp, but James waved him aside.

"I don't want to hear it right now. Let's go."

They walked into the locker room and pulled on their Quidditch robes without talking, accompanied by the chatter of the students filling the stands. There seemed to be a very large crowd. Marlene was looking gray again.

Before they left the locker room, James looked around at the six teenagers gathered around them. He couldn't think of anything to say, and he led them out.

He ran a hand through his hair (of course) and waved at the crowd as they shouted. A few people wolf-whistled in response—Sirius Black (of course) the loudest.

"And…here comes the Gryffindor team!" shouted the familiar voice, Evelyn Emerson, as usual, commentating, purple megaphone clutched tightly in his small hand. Evelyn was a ferrety little fifth-year Ravenclaw. He had very pale green eyes and the air of one who is permanently surprised when other people are not making fun of him. "Their line-up hasn't changed much this year…We have James Potter as the new Captain, no surprises there, haha, ha, Marlene McKinnon, Julia Fraser, those are the Chasers, Will Preston and Brandon Douglas are still the Beaters, Kiran Singh is the new Keeper, and rounding out the team is Seeker Samantha Vickens. Aaaaand here's the Hufflepuff team—" he broke off for a moment to allow a fresh outbreak of noise from the stands as the seven yellow-robed players walked out—"Mona Prinz is the Captain, she's also the Seeker, then the Chasers are—hang on—Anthony Belham, Lavinia Fawley, and new to the team, Emily Durang, we have Xanthe Paul and Michael Potts as the Beaters and, also new to the team, Flavia Bulstrode, Keeping."

The Hufflepuff team, standing in a row, looked a bit more intimidating than anybody could reasonably expect a Hufflepuff team to look. When Mona Prinz stepped forward to shake James' hand, as directed by Madam Flint, she gave him an easy, confident smile. She had sparkling black eyes and chin-length, curly hair. She was very pretty.

Madam Flint kicked open the crate containing the balls and blew her whistle. The game began.

"Of course, everyone's expecting a Gryffindor victory," Evelyn droned on, "after their amazing season last year, they lost just one game I believe, and—ooh, it's Potter, Potter with the Quaffle, that was quick, haha, and he passes to McKinnon—nice one, and she passes to Fraser, oops, Belham intercepts it, and Fraser, um, intercepts _him_—"

"_Foul!_" screamed the yellow-and-black side of the stands.

"I didn't touch him!" called Julie indignantly to Madam Flint, who narrowed her eyes suspiciously and then signed to Emerson.

"Well, that's not a foul, apparently Belham just dropped the Quaffle of his own accord, so now it's Fraser with the Quaffle, and she passes to Potter, and—ooh, Potter scores! Ten-zero Gryffindor!"

The crowd was screaming, and James waved to them again. He was starting to get slightly irritating.

"So now it's Fawley with the Quaffle, and she passes to Belham, and he passes it to…um, to Fraser…wrong team, Tony! It's McKinnon with the Quaffle, and—ouch!"

Xanthe Paul had hit a bludger directly at Marlene, who had to dive wildly to avoid it and dropped the Quaffle. Emily Durang flew underneath and grabbed it, but somehow she fumbled it and then James had it again, and then in a ridiculously short time Gryffindor had scored again.

It was going to be a quick game, Julie decided, and at that moment the crowd gasped—Samantha was hurtling through the air, haring after a streak of gold.

"And the Gryffindor Seeker seems to have spotted something," Emerson was saying, "yes, she's definitely after the Snitch and—ouch!"

James swore, very loudly. Xanthe Paul had hit another Bludger—this one had made contact, with a dull thunk. Madam Flint blew her whistle to signal a timeout, and the team assembled on the ground, gathering around Samantha. Her nose was bleeding a little.

"You all right?" asked James.

"She's clearly not _all right_," said Julie scathingly.

"Yeah, I'm fine," said Samantha herself.

The Hufflepuff Beater waved at them across the field. Xanthe Paul was a tall, burly black girl with short dreadlocks dyed golden-yellow. She actually looked perfectly nice, and she was probably trying to express some concern for the girl she had hit.

Julie flipped her off.

"C'mon, let's go," said Samantha, sniffing.

James signaled to Madam Flint and the teams took off again.

Julie's prediction that it would be a quick game seemed to be coming true. Within twenty minutes the Gryffindor Chasers had scored nine more goals and Hufflepuff only three.

"It's Potter with the Quaffle again," Evelyn announced, "Potter's heading for the goal, he passes to McKinnon, and she passes back to him—wow, nice one—"

Then Mona Prinz was hurtling past the jumble of Chasers, just a yellow streak heading almost vertically to the ground.

"Hit her, Douglas!" yelled James, but Brandon was at the other end of the pitch. Xanthe, as if responding to his instruction, reached out as far as she could and swung, shooting a Bludger over at James, who wasn't paying any attention.

The _whack_ of the ball hitting him was masked by the roar of the crowd, as Mona, impossibly, evened out of her dive and rocketed across the pitch. Only a few people saw the Gryffindor Captain knocked to the side by a blow to his arm—Mona's hand was in the air, clutching the little golden Snitch, and she was laughing as she flew, only a few feet above the ground.

"And that's the end of the game!" yelled Evelyn. "Wow, what a quick match, I don't think anyone was expecting that—one eighty one ten Hufflepuff!"

The spectators were all shouting, the Hufflepuff team was screaming as they sank to the ground, but the Gryffindor team was quiet. Brandon spat on the ground.

"Well, better luck next time, I suppose," said Marlene finally, as they stood on the grass, a disconsolate little group.

"Yeah."

James came down last, flying clumsily to the ground, and when he stumbled off his broom he was holding his arm in a funny way.

"I think—hospital wing…" he muttered, and then he passed out.

* * *

><p>The first thing James saw on awakening was a flash of red hair. "Lily?" he croaked weakly, still half-conscious.<p>

"No, it's me," said a waspish voice with a Scottish accent. "Why the fuck would Lily be here?"

"Never mind," muttered James, now awake enough to blush. He turned his head a little bit, wincing with pain, to see Julie ripping open a Chocolate Frog. There was, in fact, a large pile of all kinds of chocolate on the bedside table, and a fair amount of wrappers on Julie's lap.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, unreasonably irritated.

"Sirius is being yelled at because he hexed Michael Potts," said Julie through a mouthful of chocolate. "Michael was being an arse as usual, and he said something—er, _insulting, _about you, so. Peter and Remus went to appeal to McGonagall—they left you all the chocolate. Samantha is depressed, so she's taking a long shower…the others still have loads of homework…and Madam March had to go consult with Slughorn about something, so I volunteered to stay with you. I'm supposed to tell you you broke your arm." With a flourishing motion she selected another Frog.

"Right, so was that just because you wanted to get at my candy? Don't you have homework?" demanded James.

Julie shrugged, reaching for a Cauldron Cake. "They're all doing Arithmancy. I got a P on my Arithmancy O.W.L."

James snorted. "What? I didn't realize you were that bad."

"Yeah, neither did my mum," said Julie, rolling her eyes, "so she was brassed off..."

"Isn't your mum a Muggle? You should have just told her a P is really good."

"Like she'd fall for that," scoffed Julie. "I hated Arithmancy anyway—I'll just concentrate on Ancient Runes.."

"Remus takes that," said James. "It looks horrible." He was lying on his back with his eyes tight shut. Madam March had set his arm in a minute and put it in a sling before feeding him a tablespoon of Skele-Grow, but it was still aching dully.

"I like it. My mum's taught me a bunch of languages already, summers—Greek and Latin and French…"

"Wow," said James. "I didn't realize you were such a little genius."

Julie, who didn't appreciate other people's sarcasm, kicked the side of the bed. "Actually, you can learn anything if your mum is scary enough."

James smiled without opening his eyes.

"Actually," Julie said again, "I wanted to ask you something—about my mum."

"Yeah?"

"A few weeks before school started, your dad called her on the phone."

Now James opened his eyes. "My dad did what?"

"He called my mum on the telephone."

"A telephone is—is one of those wonky things you talk through, right?"

Julie regarded him frostily. "One of those wonky things you talk through, yes. I just wondered if, if you knew why, or if your dad had ever mentioned Margaret Fraser, or anything. Or if you had any ideas why your dad might be in touch with Muggles."

James was shaking his head as she spoke. "I have no idea…I don't think he's ever mentioned it. What about your dad—is he a Muggle too?"

"No, wizard. He's been living in New York the last ten years, though, and Margaret isn't really in touch with him. They only talk once or twice a year."

James hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "D'you miss him?"

"My dad?" Julie snorted. "Not a chance. We're well shot of him." She said it very confidently. In her mind, she, Margaret and Amy were a unit, the Frasers, perfectly distinct from Richard King. Her parents' separation had become, for Julie, a collective act, her family splitting cleanly in two—so much so that she had started using Fraser as her last name as soon as she got to Hogwarts, even though her letters still came to Julia King.

They had subsided into a comfortable quiet when Madam March stepped into the hospital wing, closing the doors behind her.

"Good, you're awake," she said to James. She was a thin, beak-nosed woman—not warm by any stretch of the mind, but she gave a strong impression of general competence.

Julie hopped off her chair. "Right, I'm off," she said, to both of them, although James was the only one who responded, waving his good hand as the nurse bent over him, inspecting his sling.

"See you around," he said as she stepped out into the hallway. The stone wall of the corridor was cool as she leaned her forehead against it, and one torch flickered off in the corner of her eye.

She didn't have any answers, and now she would have to talk to her mother.


	7. The Post, or Memento Mori

**VII. The Post, ****_or_**** Memento Mori**

_Dear Mum,_

_Everything's fine. We lost our first Quidditch match. I finished the Collins and the George Eliot. I am sick of novels._

_Love/miss you, etc, etc, etc._

_Julie_

_PS Stop worrying about me._

* * *

><p>If Marlene had not wanted to talk to Lily after the Quidditch match, Lily would not have stayed up late. If Lily had not stayed up late, she wouldn't have slept twenty minutes past her alarm. If she had not slept in, she would not have had to rush getting ready. If she had not been in such a hurry, she would have paused before she banged the Fat Lady's portrait open, and if she had paused, she might not have knocked James Potter off his feet.<p>

He was picking himself up off the ground, only mildly disgruntled, as Lily stepped neatly through the portrait hole.

"Oh."

He looked at her, slightly incredulous. "_Oh?_"

"Um, I mean, sorry," she muttered.

"No problem," he said evenly. She had caught him off guard, for a moment—she did that a lot—but then he closed something in his face, like drawing curtains, and Lily could almost think she had imagined his surprise. He seemed so immediately at ease that she wondered if she was imagining the awkwardness between them as well.

She had gone almost a month without talking to James at all, and part of her wished she could continue in the same way for the next two years. She hadn't, in fact, had a proper conversation with him since the Hogwarts Express in June—she wasn't sure if that counted as a proper conversation. They had run into each other in the corridor, and then—she could have seen it coming—she found herself shouting at him. Later, she had cried.

Lily turned without another word. James, to her frustration, began to follow her, hands in his pockets, whistling softly. She wheeled around.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going down to the Great Hall for breakfast," he said innocently. "Aren't you?"

She didn't respond, just turned and walked down the corridor. It wasn't, she reflected, as if she could be angry at James all the time. There were plenty of obnoxious boys in the world.

He was thinking of their encounter on the train as well. He had known perfectly that she had been about to cry, and he had thought, with that miserable egotism particular to fifteen-year-olds, that it had been entirely his fault—that he had made Lily Evans cry.

(He hadn't, of course, or at least not entirely—there was Sev, who had tried to talk to her yet again, there was Marlene, whose indignation had been entirely unhelpful, and when they wore off there was always Petunia—there were quite a number of people Lily would cry for before she cried for James.)

"How's your arm?"

"My what?"

"Your arm," she said impatiently, "the one you broke yesterday."

"It's fine, thank you," said James politely.

Lily turned, heading for the staircase to the sixth floor, and James caught her, putting his hand very lightly on her shoulder.

"This way is faster," he said, almost apologetically, and she looked at him distrustfully, but followed him to a tapestry which he lifted, ushering her through to an unfamiliar set of stairs. They emerged, to Lily's surprise, in the Charms corridor.

"Actually," he said, coming to a stop, "there is something I wanted to say to you."

Lily had stopped at the same time; now she rolled her eyes and started to walk again. "I shouldn't have let you get me alone."

"Evans—I wanted to apologize."

"Whatever for?"

"Well, for being—you know, for being such an arse."

"Just in general," said Lily archly, "or is there a specific incident you're referring to, Potter?"

"_Yes_, of course there's a specific incident—the—the _thing._"

Lily came to a halt once more. "Which _thing?_ There have been a lot of _things._"

"_Merlin_, Evans, couldn't you even try to make this a little bit easy for me?"

"You," said Lily, "don't deserve that. And I," (turning into the next corridor) "don't want to talk about it. Are you sure this is actually a shortcut? Because we're taking an awfully long time to get to the Great Hall."

"Are you doubting my navigational abilities?" asked James rather stiffly.

"More like your navigational—desires," said Lily, "don't make that face at me, that came out wrong."

"Please. I can't believe you would cast those kinds of aspersions."

"Potter, do me a favor?"

"Depends on what it is."

"Please stop talking."

"Ah," said James. "That, I'm afraid, is not possible, even for you, Evans. Besides, you just can't think of anything clever to say."

"Oh, yes," said Lily drily. "Your wit is truly overwhelming."

"I'm glad you acknowledge it."

She let out a small puff of air. They had finally reached the last staircase, and as they entered the Great Hall Lily slipped adroitly between two Ravenclaws without a word to close their conversation. No one in the room would have thought they had walked down together.

Marlene was talking very loudly, hands waving in the air.

"So I said, I'm sorry Bertie, but I don't see why that means I have to go out with you—Hi, Lily!"

"Hey," said Lily shortly, sitting herself down next to Julie. She seemed to have been chewing on a fork in a meditative way for the entirety of Marlene's story, and she flashed Lily a quick smile, very glad for the distraction.

"You're late," said Julie, "again. Why do you keep being late to things? It's very unlike you."

Lily reached for the bacon. "Well, _somebody _kept me up until one in the morning talking about—"

"—secret girl things," cut in Marlene, "and then I felt sorry for you and turned off your alarm. I thought you would be grateful."

"You turned off my alarm?" said Lily, very alarmed indeed.

"I'm a girl," said Julie at the same time.

"Yes, dear, we've all noticed," said Marlene. "Shall we talk about your love life now?"

The post announced itself with the soft rustle of many wings, and Julie didn't bother to retort—she was looking for the familiar light brown feathers of her barn owl.

And there he was, brown paper parcel clutched in his talons. Ariel wobbled a bit as he landed, nearly upsetting Lily's goblet.

"Watch it," said Lily absently, detaching her copy of the _Daily Prophet_. "Oh...oh wow."

Marlene looked up from her own snowy white bird. "What happened?"

Lily put five bronze Knuts into the small pouch tied to the delivery owl's leg, and it flew off, ruffling Lily's hair with a sweep of its wings. Lily paid no attention; she had leaned back and was frowning as she read the front page, eyes moving very fast.

"What is it?" asked Marlene, more urgently.

Lily folded the paper and pushed it across the table. "Why don't you just get a subscription?" she asked.

"Because I can read your copy, obviously," said Marlene. "What was the...oh."

Julie rolled her eyes. "Read it out loud, you prat."

Marlene cleared her throat. "Suspected Death Eater Found Dead," she read.

"_Aludra Black was found dead in her Chelsea apartment in the early hours of the morning, Ministry sources reveal. _

_The 48-year-old has long been suspected of illegal activity, although she was never convicted of any crimes,_ writes Rita Skeeter, junior correspondent for the _Prophet_. _Popular opinion linked Black with the 1973 murder of Isabel Crandall, then Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but these rumors have never been addressed—nor have those pertaining to Black's several large donations to the Ministry at the time. She was implicated in the 1975 killings of several Muggle families as well, apparently working with several of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's followers, but she was never tried._

_Black was found in her bedroom, with her throat cut. Although the cause of death was non-magical, "a wizard definitely killed her," says an inside source. "She had loads of defensive spells around every entrance to the apartment. There's no way a Muggle could have gotten through." _

"_She certainly had enemies," continued the source. "I can think of plenty of people who would want to kill her."_

_No suspects have been yet taken in, according to Ministry officials._

_Continued on page 17._

Marlene looked up. "Weird—why would someone kill her like that? Is it supposed to be revenge, for the Muggles she killed?"

Julie's thoughts were running in a different direction. Almost without trying, her eyes flicked down the table. Sirius was using his wand to shoot bits of scrambled egg at Remus, who was trying to have a conversation with Eliza Brock, the fifth-year Gryffindor prefect, and kept absentmindedly brushing the breakfast food off his sweater. None of them seemed to have read the newspaper. She wondered if Sirius would care that he was one family member fewer.

"What's in the package?" Marlene asked her, and Julie turned back to her own mail.

"It'll be from my mum," she explained, "just books, probably."

There were five, plays and poetry. There was also a note.

_Dear Julie,_

_What multiloquent letters you send me. It's such a reassurance to know that you are doing so well._

_No more novels...for now. _

_Margaret._

Julie folded the piece of paper in half, in quarters, in eighths. When it was smaller than her thumbnail she tucked it in her pocket.

* * *

><p>In the break between History of Magic and dinner, Julie scribbled off a quick thank-you for the books and went up to the Owlery to send it. She didn't want to send letters. She wanted to talk to her mother in person. Not even to ask her questions—she just wished for her mother with an almost physical want.<p>

She pushed open the door. The owls were beginning to wake from their daytime sleep, and she was greeted by a few angry screeches. Someone was standing at the window, and he turned at her entrance.

It was Sirius Black. He was holding his own letter, a small parchment scroll, and his own owl was perched on his finger. Julie stopped in her tracks.

"Aren't you going to close the door?" he asked. "One of the owls might fly out."

"I didn't think they were that stupid," said Julie, but she obliged and closed the door behind her, stepping fully into the room.

_Say something, you moron_, she thought, but her mind had gone curiously blank, so she just called for her own owl.

"_Ariel!_"

Ariel fluttered down to perch opposite Julie—he almost never landed on her finger right away—and eyed her distrustfully. She put her finger behind his feathery little knees—or whatever they were, she wasn't very bothered about avian anatomy—and he climbed up, hooting dolefully until she stuck the folded note into his beak.

Then she had to turn back, and go to the window and send Ariel off, and Sirius didn't really get out of her way, so she put her hand on his arm as she leaned over the broad sill.

"Who're you writing?" Sirius asked, busy fastening his scroll onto the leg of his very elegant great horned owl.

She waited for the bird to spread its wings and take flight, circling once above their heads and heading over the Forbidden Forest before she answered. "A friend," said Julie, who thought writing to her mother was remarkably uninteresting. "Boyfriend, actually," she added, and then, thinking of Ian, "ex-boyfriend, really."

Sirius raised his eyebrows.

"You?" asked Julie, thinking about raising her eyebrows as well and then instantaneously deciding that would look ridiculous.

"My cousin," Sirius said after a pause. "Andromeda."

"I thought you hated your whole family." Everyone knew that Sirius Black had Family Trouble—it was hardly a secret, not with him in Gryffindor and his little brother in Slytherin, their occasional spat insults in semi-private, the fights with each other's set of friends. For a short second she thought he was going to shout at her as well. But then he just shrugged.

"I hate most of them. 'Dromeda's all right."

Julie bit her lip and nodded, and then, because she very much wanted to know her limits, "I read about one of your relatives in the newspaper today."

He already knew, that much she could tell, but nothing in his face changed as he watched her. "Dear old auntie Aludra, yeah? Not a great loss."

She wanted him to know more than that, and to tell more, but she didn't want to ask.

"Why's your owl named Ariel?" he asked.

It was a rather weak attempt to change the subject, she thought, but she told him. "It's from Shakespeare. 'I come to answer thy best pleasure; be it to fly, to swim, to dive into the fire, to ride on the curled clouds, to thy strong bidding task—Ariel and all his quality.' _The Tempest_ was—it was my favorite play when I was eleven."

She was a little embarrassed of this. It seemed now to be a remarkably silly name for an owl, and a remarkably silly play. Besides, it was utterly inaccurate—the barn owl hardly ever came to answer Julie's best pleasure; he was an irascible bird, and she an irascible girl.

But Sirius surprised her by looking at her sideways, a little awkward himself, and saying, "I read that when I was eleven too. I used to spend a lot of time in the Muggle library, before I got to Hogwarts."

"_Really_?" she asked, face breaking into a smile, and then she was going to say something else, and then someone screamed. Shattering, piercing, and close—no words, no thought, just pain.

A girl was screaming, just outside.

Julie and Sirius stared at each other for a moment (they were almost precisely the same height) and then they both ran, banging the door of the Owlery behind them, leaving a cacophony of hoots and shrieks and a few downy feathers floating in their wake.

She was still screaming, she would not stop, and they almost could not tell where she was, until—"This way," Sirius gasped, and they were off again and for a moment he grabbed at Julie's hand and she almost stumbled and they ran until they turned a corner and the horrible shriek was over. And there was someone lying on the floor, and two someones turning the corner, just a flick of black robes. And Sirius ran after them, and Julie nearly fell to the floor, skidding awkwardly down to her knees, to the sobbing girl.

"I don't remember," whispered Niamh Fairchild, hiccuping, letting Julie awkwardly lift her shoulders, before she could even ask the question—

"Who—Niamh—shit, oh my god, who was it, who attacked you—"

"I don't remember, said Niamh, looking up with her baby blue eyes. "Julie, really, I don't remember...I don't remember..."

* * *

><p>"Out, damned spot," she demanded of the empty room as she scrubbed. It was ink, however, and not blood, that she was washing from her hands, and Margaret Fraser knew the difference perfectly well—ink was much harder to remove.<p>

_Alec was right, _she thought. _I'm not being sensible..._

She went back to the table and once again dipped the quill in the inkwell. It was Amy's quill, one that she had neglected to take with her, and Margaret could see why—it was spattering hopelessly.

_My dearest, _she wrote.

_Sweetheart._

_If this letter should find you, or you find this letter..._


	8. Niamh

**VIII. Niamh**

"I was walking up to the Owlery. I had a letter, to send to—to my mum. And then I heard someone behind me, talking—saying the curse, I suppose, and then...that's all. That's all I remember."

It was Tuesday, the day after the attack, and it was raining heavily, wind battering water into the centuries-old stone of the great castle. The windows were shut, the curtains pulled. Lamps cast warm, golden circles of light on the hospital wing's ceiling. Niamh was sitting in the only occupied bed, wrapped in a dressing gown, with the blankets pulled up over her legs. She was hugging her knees, staring straight ahead.

"What happened to the letter?" Julie thought to ask.

Niamh shrugged. "I don't know; I suppose I lost it."

Julie sighed. "Was it a boy or a girl?"

"I don't know."

"You really didn't see them at all?"

Niamh was pulling at the thin white blanket. Her face was drawn and pale, but she looked distinctly uncomfortable.

"I don't know...no, I didn't."

"You didn't recognize the voice?"

Niamh took a deep breath. "Julie, I really don't want to talk about it, okay? Just please drop it. I don't need to know who it was."

Julie stared. "Yes, you do! What if they attack someone else? I don't want to—to push you, or something, but this isn't just about you."

"I'm pretty sure it's just about me," Niamh muttered.

"What?"

"Thanks," said Niamh, looking over her roommate's shoulder. Madam March had approached without Julie noticing, and now she was handing Niamh a steaming cup of tea—or something like tea: it was slightly purple.

Niamh took the cup in both hands and drank in one gulp, grimacing as the hot liquid went down.

"Does she have to stay long?" Julie asked the nurse.

Madam March frowned. "Not if she doesn't want to. She didn't need to stay overnight for her health, really—she's just a little shaken up." And we wanted to make sure she was safe, she didn't say, but Julie figured that out herself. Using the Cruciatus Curse didn't just mean expulsion—the culprit, when they were caught (please let them be caught) would probably go to Azkaban.

Or, she found herself wondering, would they go to some kind of young offenders Azkaban? Reform school? It wasn't something she had put much thought into.

Julie stood. "Well," she said uncertainly, "I have...you know, class."

Niamh smiled wanly. She was holding out her arm for Madam March now, wrist facing up.

Julie was almost at the door when she heard movement behind her. Niamh clambered out of bed, clutching the dressing gown around herself as she ran across the room.

"Julie," she said quietly, so that Madam March, who was standing impatiently by the bed, could not hear her, "Julie, I know you're probably angry at me because—because I, er, sort of stopped talking to you last year..." She trailed off nervously. _ Too fucking right,_ thought Julie, but she just raised her eyebrows questioningly.

"Anyway," Niamh said, almost gulping, (she had forgotten how _nervous_ this girl got about everything) (cut her some slack, Julie, she just got attacked) "anyway, I was hoping we could, we could be friends again. Maybe."

_Did I miss an apology in there somewhere?_ Julie wondered. _No, I don't think I did._

_Cut her some slack, Julie._

"Yeah," she said finally, "yeah, we can be friends, again. Sure."

Niamh smiled, and just a little bit of the tension left her face. Julie smiled back—just half of her mouth—and then she turned to go.

"Your parents will be here after dinner," she heard Madam March say, before the heavy doors of the hospital wing swung shut behind her.

Sirius was waiting in the corridor.

He was leaning against the wall, hair falling in his face. He had passed her a note in Charms class—she still had it, folded in her pocket—and they had left together at the bell and made their way to the hospital wing. She had gone in by herself, since Niamh and Sirius were barely acquaintances, and he had resigned himself to waiting outside.

"Did she say anything?"

Julie shrugged, rummaging in her pockets. "Not much. She still doesn't remember anything."

"Does that happen?" he asked, skeptically.

She rolled her eyes. "Shock...you know..." She found a cigarette, lit it with her wand and took a long drag. "She's lying. I'm ninety-five percent sure. Are we going to Potions now? Want a cigarette?"

"Yes," was all he said, and she thought about that and then gave him the cigarette. He rolled it between his fingers and then, thoughtfully, put it in his pocket. She stared at him.

"I don't really know Niamh," he said as they started to walk dungeon-ward. "What's she like?"

"Mm...she's sweet, I suppose. Insecure about her skin. Likes agreeing with people. Normal teenage witch."

"So I suppose this was just ordinary Slytherin bullshit?" said Sirius. He might have been a bit disappointed.

Julie blew out smoke. "Actually, I don't think so. Niamh seems weird about it, and it just seems really...risky, to use an Unforgivable, unless there's a reason. And before you ask, yes, I've thought about who might have a grudge against Niamh, and I couldn't think of anyone. Except—well, except me."

"Fraser! Are you confessing?"

She just rolled her eyes. She was already starting to regret telling Niamh they could be friends again. She should have at least shouted at her a bit first.

"Look, it's her sister," said Sirius, gesturing with his chin. They were at the top of the staircase going down to the Entrance Hall, and Siobhan Fairchild was standing in the shadow of the Slytherin hourglass. She was wearing her Ravenclaw prefect badge, and her dark straight hair was shining in the torchlight. She had never looked more different from her twin sister, pale and anxious in her fluffy dressing gown. She seemed quite angry, and she was talking to Caius Mulciber.

"I told you they were going out," said Sirius smugly.

Julie scoffed. "They're having a conversation."

They stood side by side, one pair above watching the pair below. Siobhan seemed to be shouting at the Slytherin, waving her hands animatedly while he slouched back into the wall. Snatches of their conversation floated up.

"..it wasn't necessary, not for her..."

"...you said..."

Indistinguishable murmurs.

"...she won't tell! It's not a problem anymore!"

"Yes, but if you'd just tried—" Siobhan stopped talking abruptly. She was looking up, and Julie realized that she and Sirius had been seen.

They weren't going to hear anything else, and so they walked down the stairs. Siobhan watched them with crossed arms and narrowed eyes—Julie thought of a cat, twitching its tail. She looked utterly furious. Mulciber just looked bored.

"It's going to be fine," he said quietly to Siobhan, and he leaned in to kiss her cheek before he left, taking the stairs two at a time.

Julie squirmed oddly to avoid Sirius' elbow, aiming for her ribs.

They spent the walk to the dungeons bickering pleasantly. She held the door for him, and he winked at her before he went over to James' table. They were late—only by a few minutes, but that was enough to earn a glare from Professor Slughorn.

Julie sat down next to Lily, who was busy chopping bat spleens.

"What are we doing?"

"We're making Calming Draughts, in pairs. I was working by myself, but I suppose you're my partner." Lily's expression made it fairly clear that she thought she had been doing just fine on her own.

I know exactly how you feel, thought Julie. "Pass the pomegranate juice."

* * *

><p>After dinner, they hung around the Entrance Hall, trying to look innocent, and watched Professor McGonagall escort Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild up the front walk. Niamh's father was a tall, thin man with a stoop in his shoulders and small wire-rimmed glasses. Her mother was smaller and even frailer, with a puff of curly reddish-brown hair. She looked as though one good gust of wind would blow her away. He was a wizard, she was a Muggle.<p>

Despite their best efforts, Sirius and Julie overheard only strained pleasantries.

Nevertheless, Niamh stayed in school, despite the flying rumors, and slowly the anxiety felt by everyone after her attack started to fade away. September leached into October and a routine settled in, classes, quidditch, flirting, sleep. Predictability (predictably) shifted into very slight boredom.

You would think you couldn't get bored at a magic school, wouldn't you? Wrong. You can get bored anywhere.

They had their first Hogsmeade weekend, and Lily, surprisingly, decided that she was going to go together with not just Marlene but also Julie and Mary. She was starting to realize how little she knew about these girls who were her roommates, and how much she had kept to herself over the last five years. Lily prided herself on her self-sufficiency, but somehow, even so—it wasn't a very pleasant realization.

So they went to Hogsmeade together, the four of them, (Niamh had been invited, but politely refused) and it felt a little bit like a field trip, but they had a good time. They went to the Three Broomsticks and Zonko's and the Post Office, and they ran into James Potter and his friends in Honeydukes. Literally; Honeydukes was unveiling a new sort of marzipan and in the crush Lily backed into him and stepped on his feet.

Halloween passed, more or less uneventfully. The Gryffindor team practiced harder than ever, trying to make up for the shame of their earlier catastrophic loss. Julie sent back her mother's books and got a new lot. She started quoting George Bernard Shaw at every available opportunity (and there were surprisingly many opportunities) until Marlene almost hexed her for it.

Niamh and Julie did actually become friends, in a way. They started studying at the same table in the Gryffindor Common Room, and occasionally they even went so far as to acknowledge each other in the corridors.

There was an ancient, heavily enchanted turntable in the girls' dormitory, and Marlene played her Red Caps record so many times that Julie actually broke it in two. They didn't speak to each other for a week; Lily repaired it in ten seconds.

* * *

><p>On a Tuesday in the second half of November, six Muggles were killed, a small family in Yorkshire and the elderly couple next door. On Wednesday, Erasmus Lestrange was found dead in his home. He had been shot, just once, with an ordinary pistol.<p>

That day, Professor Dumbledore came into the Transfiguration classroom, just as the Hufflepuff second years were finishing. He walked up to Professor McGonagall's desk and said something to her in a low voice as he handed her a slip of parchment.

The Hufflepuffs filed out, babbling about beetles and buttons, and the next class was already queued up outside, Severus Snape at the head of the line. The two Professors were having a conversation in low, urgent voices, so he hovered uncomfortably in the doorway.

"It's just unfortunate we didn't part on the best of terms," said Dumbledore, eyes twinkling. "Thank you, Minerva."

He turned to leave. The Slytherins were starting to fidget outside, but even so Dumbledore stopped in front of them, studying Severus with those bright blue eyes.

Severus didn't manage to keep eye contact. "Yes...sir?"

"Professor Slughorn informs me that you are doing exceptionally well in Potions class," was all Dumbledore said. "Keep up the good work."

Annabelle Fawley was poking him in the back, and Professor McGonagall had already begun to write a series of vicious calculations on the blackboard, but Severus watched the headmaster go with a funny sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He knew what he had to say to Mulciber.


	9. Tell and Kiss

**IX. Tell and Kiss**

The Hogwarts library was a great, cathedralic room. Dust motes twinkled as they spiraled down, caught in the thick beams of sunlight filtered through the high arched windows, like bubbles caught in amber. The room smelled of ink, paper and parchment, permeated by a deep hush that conveyed centuries of concentration.

Naturally, the library was at the very center of the Hogwarts rumor mill.

Down the center of the room ran a row of four-person tables, and it was here that many of the most popular bits of news, gossip or complete untruths had been spread throughout the school. One of Julie's favorite pastimes was coming into the library and eavesdropping—or at least it had been, until the teachers started assigning so much homework that she actually had to spend all of her library time studying.

At the beginning of December, Professor Slughorn informed his class that they would be doing projects in pairs, to be presented on the last class of the term. He matched them with their deskmates, and then let them pick slips of parchment, eyes closed, for topics. Lily and Julie were assigned Poisons and Antidotes. So they made a date, Wednesday in the library, and Julie—apparently solitarily—had kept it.

_Catch me doing that again,_ she thought ruefully.

She had been sitting at the agreed-upon desk for ten minutes, drawing increasingly unflattering cartoons of Professor Slughorn, (even less flattering than she meant them to be—she was really terrible at drawing) when she started listening to the conversation at the next table.

It was a small group of Ravenclaw girls, fourth and fifth years. They were having the Potter or Black conversation.

_Oh good, something new for a change..._

"Have you _seen_ him fly?" one girl was gushing.

"Everyone's seen him fly, Em," said another acerbically. "He just doesn't have the hair..."

"I thought he had a thing for Mona Prinz, anyway," chipped in a third, pushing up her cat eye glasses. Julie choked down a laugh.

"Isn't Potter going out with Julia Fraser?" said a fourth girl. Julie choked again and had to actually duck beneath the table when one of the girls looked her way.

"He's not," said the second girl, the sarcastic one. "She's a total slag." ("_Monica_," Em giggled.) "And he's still crazy about that prefect, Lily Evans. Sirius, on the other hand..."

Julie was drawing a new comic, a little stick figure wearing a Ravenclaw scarf. Well, she only had black ink—but she knew it was a Ravenclaw scarf.

_I AM A TOTAL SLAG AND SIRIUS BLACK IS OUT OF MY LEAGUE,_ she wrote in the speech bubble.

"Evans is so full of herself," Em moaned. There were murmurs of agreement from the other girls.

"Actually, she's really not," said the girl with the cat eye glasses. "She's really nice to me whenever I talk to her."

"Which is what, once a year?" said Monica.

"I talked to her last week," said Glasses stiffly, bending over her books.

Monica was saying something else unpleasant, but Julie had already stopped caring.

Severus Snape stepped out from between two bookcases, turned a corner, and slipped into the next aisle. He was being shadowed by Caius Mulciber.

Julie hesitated for only a second before she stood up, slung her bag onto the table, and followed. She walked quietly into the aisle that the two Slytherins had just left, right alongside the one they were currently in. Unfortunately, the bookshelves had solid wooden backs, so there was no way to see the boys, but she could hear them.

"—not in charge anyway, Caius," Snape was saying smoothly. He had a slimy sort of voice—like this, when she couldn't see the greasy hair or the shabby clothes, he almost seemed threatening. "So what information I have, I don't give to you."

"Really, Severus?" said Mulciber. "And here I thought we were friends." Julie could practically hear him smirking.

"Of course—of course I trust you—" said Snape unconvincingly, "but—I'm not trying to imply—"

Mulciber cut him off.

"Listen, Snape, if you actually know a way in from the village, and you're not just lying for attention..." His voice dwindled to a whisper. Julie was straining so hard to hear that she was actually leaning on the shelf in front of her, ear against it.

"What are you doing?"

Julie almost fell. It was the girl with the cat eye glasses. She had straight black hair and bright blue-green eyes, filled with nothing but frank curiosity. Julie wanted to throttle her.

The voices on the other side of the shelf had already fallen silent. Julie held perfectly still, not even breathing, until she heard quiet footsteps moving away. The boys were gone, and she let her face relax into a scowl.

"It's really none of your business."

Glasses made a skeptical face. "If you say so. Anyway, Lily Evans showed up. She took your seat."

Julie looked at her for a moment, trying to silently convey how utterly displeased she was, before leaving her in the stacks.

Lily had, indeed taken Julie's seat, and she was reading Julie's notes—in fact, she was laughing quietly at the last cartoon.

"Anything you need to tell me, _Julia_?"

Julie snatched the parchment, considered it, and then put it in her pocket. "Don't be stupid, that's obviously not me."

"Interesting..."

"Oh, fuck _off_."

Lily stared at her.

Julie exploded, but quietly, because she was in a library. "Where the hell were you? You are"—she checked Lily's watch—"_twenty-three_ minutes late. Anything _you_ need to tell _me_, Evans?"

"Oh," said Lily, seeming honestly surprised at Julie's anger, "Sorry. I was just—um, I was just talking to somebody."

Julie opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and then sat down opposite the other girl, figuring there was no way she was getting back her original seat. In a more reasonable tone, she said, "Come on, Lily. I know you have a secret—you've been late to everything. What's going on?"

Lily hesitated, biting her lip. "It's nothing. I was talking to someone."

Julie just looked at her.

"Well—there's a boy."

Pause.

Then: "Damn," said Julie dispassionately, "I thought it was something interesting..."

Lily snorted, and then looked down, getting shy again.

"Who is he?" asked Julie.

"Nigel—Nigel Fontaine, you know him? He's the Ravenclaw prefect, seventh year."

Julie shrugged.

"That's his little sister," Lily added, pointing, "Isabelle."

It was Glasses, who was back at her table and currently whacking Monica over the head with a Transfiguration textbook.

"Oh," said Julie, a little distastefully. "So what's he like? Ravenclaw prefect, hm? You've found someone just as swotty as you!"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Julie, please...he's—I mean, he's _smart_—he's...very nice..."

"Thrilling."

"I like him a lot," said Lily firmly. "We're going to Hogsmeade together."

"Well, good for you," said Julie. "Is he fit?" She didn't give Lily enough time to answer before she went on. "Can't be, particularly, else I'd know him, wouldn't I? How far've you gone?"

This was the final straw for Lily, who put her hands to her face. "I wasn't going to tell you anything..."

"—but you did, so now you have to tell me everything. Have you shagged him yet?"

"I am not _answering_ that—"

"_Lily Evans_..."

* * *

><p>"What are you doing?"<p>

It was a girl's voice, clear and high, very close. Mulciber fell silent.

He frowned at Severus, pointing at himself—_is she talking to us?_

Severus jerked his head towards the shelf behind them—_no, somewhere over there_—and then gestured towards the door. _ Let's get out._

Mulciber followed him, past the librarian and out the door.

They walked down two flights of stairs to the Entrance Hall, and then down another to the dungeons. It wasn't until they were approaching the Slytherin Common Room that either spoke.

"—what I mean is," said Severus abruptly, as if he had not been interrupted at all, "logically, there must be a way into the school that Filch isn't watching, or the Aurors or whoever."

"You already told me this," said Mulciber in a bored voice. "Where do Potter and his mates get all the alcohol for their _fabulous_ parties that _you_ aren't invited to..."

"It's a valid point," said Severus coolly. "Anyway, I _didn't_ say that I know where this passage, or whatever, is."

"Didn't you?"

"Er...not really..."

Mulciber stopped in his tracks. "So you were just lying the entire time? Just to clarify. You made the whole thing up, is what you are saying?"

"I—no, I mean, there must have been some kind of a, a _misunderstanding_. That's all." Severus shifted his weight uncomfortably.

"A misunderstanding," said Mulciber coldly, brown eyes unblinking. "Right."

The other boy just nodded.

"Look, Snape—" here Mulciber clapped Severus on the shoulder, so that his knees buckled, "I just realized I left my history book in the library, so I'm just gonna run back and get it, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure."

"See you around."

Severus nodded slowly, but Mulciber was already gone, robes billowing out behind him.

He had said what he meant to say. And now he felt perfectly certain that he had made the wrong choice.

* * *

><p>She had to tell Dumbledore.<p>

He had to know.

Enough was enough.

It was not, she supposed, what James Potter would suggest, but then she really wasn't in the habit of taking suggestions from James Potter.

The only problem was a fairly large one—she had no idea where Professor Dumbledore was. What did he _do_ in his spare time? He must have an office, somewhere, but where, she had no idea.

_James Potter would know,_ she thought glumly. Regardless, she found her way to the Transfiguration Office.

She knocked on the door, and Professor McGonagall immediately opened it.

"Miss Fraser?"

"I, ah, I wondered where I could find Professor Dumbledore."

McGonagall surveyed her through her square-rimmed glasses for a moment, and then she opened the door all the way and stepped back to let Julie through. Dumbledore was inside, standing at the window, apparently watching the Ravenclaw Quidditch team practice.

"Oh."

"Miss Fraser," said the headmaster, smiling. "What can I do for you?"

Julie took a breath, lacing her fingers together. "It's about—there's a student—Snape, Severus Snape." There really wasn't any way to come at it gradually. "I think he's a Death Eater."

There was a pause. Then Professor McGonagall said abruptly, "That's an extremely serious accusation to make, Miss Fraser."

"Um...yes. I mean, I know it is, otherwise I wouldn't make it...There's something else. He knows—he knows a way into the castle. There's a secret passage—maybe more than one—and he knows where it is."

The two Professors shared a significant look. Then Dumbledore said calmly, "Yes, he does."

Julie stared. "You know?"

He just nodded.

"Aren't you worried that he might tell anyone? Other students, or—or anyone?"

"Miss Fraser," said the headmaster in a measured voice, "There are certain students who have—perhaps—more information than they should, about this castle. I have spoken to all of them, and I don't believe any of them to be a security risk. As for Mr. Snape being a Death Eater—do you really think, that if anyone in this school posed a real threat to the other students, I would allow them to stay here?"

She looked at him for a long moment, turning that over in her mind, and then finally she shook her head. _How do you know what a "real threat" is, Professor?_ she wanted to say, but she was silent.

"I hope that satisfies your concerns?" he said more gently.

She shrugged, a little uncertain. It didn't, not by a long shot—it was a pretty nothing. She had heard more than a few of those, over the years, and they usually weren't followed by anything useful. So she turned to go.

"Julia," said Professor McGonagall, and Julie stopped with her hand on the doorknob. She had never heard her Head of House call her by anything other than her surname.

"Yes, Professor?"

McGonagall looked at her very intently, her expression unreadable. "Try not to do any more detective work. Your responsibility is to keep yourself safe."

Julie nodded slowly. "Right. Thank you, Professor—Professor."

She closed the office door and let out a great breath of air. _That's it? Do I really seem that incompetent to them, that completely oblivious?_

She started off towards the Great Hall. _ This is important,_ she thought. _I know it is._

_ Christ, I hope we have have something good for dinner..._

* * *

><p>Two weeks before the end of term, they had their next Hogsmeade weekend. To Julie's surprise, Niamh wanted to go together. So they wrapped themselves up in cloaks, hats and scarves and joined the long line in the Entrance Hall, where Filch was slowly and methodically checking students for contraband items.<p>

Lily was a little ways ahead of them, with a dark-haired boy who had to be Nigel. They were talking intently, Lily waving her hands around in the way she did when she was really involved in a conversation, but she managed a grin at Julie over the Ravenclaw's shoulder.

Finally, they escaped from Filch's Probity Probe, and they made their way down the driveway, neither of them talking. There was a thin layer of snow on the ground, just enough to crunch. Niamh was humming a little and picking at a stray thread on her mitten. Julie was trying to think of something she could get her mother for Christmas.

"Oi, Scottie!"

Julie stopped and turned. Niamh, with a small sigh, followed suit.

It was James, of course, face red from the cold, glasses slightly askew. He was running towards the girls, followed at a slower pace by Peter, Remus and Sirius.

"Listen, Julie," said James in a voice that was strikingly casual, considering he had just run all the way down the drive to talk to her, "just out of curiosity, would you happen to know who that boy with the brown hair is?"

"The boy with the brown hair?" said Julie. Niamh was scuffling her feet in the snow, completely uninterested in the conversation.

"Yeah, him."

"That's Remus Lupin," said Julie cheerfully. "He sleeps in your dormitory, and in fact, he's been one of your best mates for about six years. The memories should come back to you eventually..."

"Prat. I mean the other one. That one over there." He gestured down the path.

"Oh, you mean Lily Evans' new _boyfriend?_" Julie drawled. "Why on earth didn't you say? Well, his name is Nigel Fontaine, he's apparently 'very nice,' they probably haven't slept together yet, and his little sister has rather nasty friends. That is all I know about him."

"Right. Thanks."

"Anytime."

Niamh was actually tugging on her arm by this point, so Julie let herself be tugged, and they headed down to the village.

"Jesus, Niamh..." said Julie ruefully, rubbing her wrist. "What's with you?"

Niamh shrugged uncomfortably.

"I mean, why do you hate James so much?"

"I don't _hate_ him," said Niamh, "I just think he's an idiot. He's completely full of himself, he's rude to practically everyone, and he doesn't ever make an effort at anything. Really, why do you like him?"

"Well, when you put it like that..." said Julie with a laugh. "Sure, he's a bit of a git, but he's always been perfectly nice to me...we're mates. I told him the plot of every Star Trek episode in existence once in second year, when we both had the owl flu."

"Star Trek?"

"Sure. Why do you think he calls me Scottie?" Julie looked sideways at her companion, who still seemed rather confused. "Wait...you've never watched Star Trek, have you?"

Niamh shook her head.

"Oh. Never mind..."

The conversation trailed off after that. There was a thin wind blowing up Hogsmeade Main Street, and all the students they passed were tightly wrapped in their cloaks. Julie lit a cigarette.

"Could you not?" asked Niamh. Julie looked at her with a little surprise, but then she did put it out, grinding it into the ground with the toe of her boot.

They were quiet. There was only one thing Julie could think of to say, and she was fairly certain that it would not lead to a productive conversation.

She said it anyway. "Do you think it was Mulciber who attacked you?"

"Oh my _God_, Julia."

"No, really—I'm sorry, I know you don't want to—it's just, we were thinking—"

"Oh, _we_?" said Niamh acidly. "Who's _we_? Julia Fraser and Sirius Black, ace detective team?"

"_Niamh—_"

"_Julie_. Stop."

"Fine...can we go into Scrivenshaft's?"

They went into the shop, each silent and a little resentful, and looked around for about ten minutes. After much longer than it ought to take, Julie picked out a quill and paid for it.

"Honeydukes?" she suggested as they stepped back out onto the street, but Niamh shook her head.

"D'you want to just...I don't know, walk around?" she suggested.

"Oh, sure," said Julie. "It's maybe five degrees below freezing?"

Niamh just shrugged. It was becoming a strikingly unenjoyable day.

They walked up Hogsmeade Main Street. A small flurry of snow was beginning to spiral down from the sky, the very nastiest, wettest kind. The Three Broomsticks was warmly lit, and as they passed the door opened, a yellow square of light falling on the snow-dusted pavement in front, and a group of Slytherin girls came out, chattering and giggling. Siobhan Fairchild was with them, laughing very loudly at something Aurelia Malfoy had just said, clutching her arm. Niamh stopped walking, uncertain, eyes wide.

"What are you waiting for?" said Julie sharply, poking her in the side. This was getting absurd, she thought—surely Niamh could talk to her sister any time she wanted to.

But Niamh wasn't paying attention to her, and then Siobhan looked over at them, and then Niamh went completely still, deer-in-the-headlights—as if her fight-or-flight reaction was busy breaking down, right at that very moment.

Siobhan frowned, and whispered something to Aurelia, and then she crossed the street to her sister.

"Niamh," she said brightly, "Want to come with us to Honeydukes?"

Niamh wasted a brief moment choking and then turned to Julie. "You don't mind, do you, Jule?" she said. "I'll meet you again...back at the castle..."

"Yeah, have fun," said Julie coolly, because really there was nothing else she could say—not with Siobhan right there, standing with her arms crossed and her blue eyes icy.

"Thanks," said Niamh, as if Julie had actually meant it, which she hadn't, but then her twin gripped her firmly by the elbow and started pulling her over towards her friends, and Julie just got out another cigarette.

The snow was starting to thicken, great wet flakes catching in her hair, so she crossed the street to stand against the pub's wall and smoke in the relative shelter that the overhanging roof afforded. She could hear the muffled sound of many voices from inside, but in front of her only a few people were still passing, and now the snow was starting to obscure them, turning them into lumbering dark shapes in a great white expanse.

Then there was a _whomp_ and she was suddenly much wetter around the middle.

"You _arsehole_!"

"I do my best," said James Potter, grinning as he emerged (alone—he must have gotten rid of his friends somehow) from the snow. He had no gloves, and his hands were wet from the snowball he had just thrown. "See you, Scottie." And he stepped into the pub.

* * *

><p>The Three Broomsticks was packed with Hogwarts students, all of them cold and wet, so Nigel went to wait in the serpentine line at the bar while Lily looked for a table. There was only one in the corner, with a sticky top and two mismatched chairs, but she just chose the more comfortable of the latter and used a quick Cleaning Charm on the former.<p>

Isabelle came in, with Mary Macdonald, and waved at her. There was a strong smell of wet wool in the air.

The door opened with a clatter and James Potter came in, followed by a rush of cold air. He was, unusually, alone, and his hair was dusted with enough snow to make it look as though it had prematurely whitened. He looked around, and then rather than join the line for a butterbeer, crossed the packed room to Lily's table.

"All right, Evans?"

"Potter," Lily said with a small smile; he cut rather a pathetic figure, dripping with melted snow and with his glasses fogged up.

He sat himself down in the opposite chair, which wobbled dangerously under his weight but didn't give way. "Having a good time?"

She wasn't really sure what he was asking, so she just said, "Don't you think Hogsmeade must be nice when it isn't completely packed with students?"

"Yeah, it is," he said.

She smiled, leaning her elbows on the table.

"How are you getting on with the Charms essay?" asked James.

"You really came over here to talk about Charms?"

"Sure, why not," he said with a shrug. "You're the second best in class, after all."

Lily stiffened and sat up straight. "I am _not_."

He thought about it. "Well, no, I suppose Sirius _might_ be better than you too...maybe..."

She scoffed. "Please, Potter, you _wish_ you were better at Charms than me—do I need to bring up the toad thing?"

He opened his mouth to say something clever, but someone else spoke first.

It was Nigel; he was holding two butterbeers, looking a little bemused. "I think you're in my seat?" he said politely to James.

"Right, sorry," said James, standing up. "Evans—" He gave her a little salute. "The toad thing was all Sirius. See you around."

He turned and left, and as he went he ran his hands through his hair, getting water on several people's shoes.

"I didn't know you two were friends," said Nigel.

"That would be news to me too," said Lily. "Anyway, you were saying, about your holiday in France—"

"Right, so—we were in Paris, right—have you ever been?"

"To Paris?" said Lily with a snort. "I wish..."

* * *

><p>He was glad it was snowing—he had the hood of his cloak up, and going to the Hog's Head wasn't precisely forbidden, but the harder he was to recognize, the better. Mulciber made his way down the street alone, sliding a bit on the wet ground, and shut the door firmly behind him when he got inside.<p>

Lucius Malfoy was already there, sitting in the corner, sipping a firewhiskey with an expression of very mild disgust.

"Malfoy."

"Mulciber," he answered, the coldness of his tone plainly saying that he would prefer a bit more respect from someone so many (six) years younger.

Mulciber sat down.

"You have some information?"

"I do," said Mulciber, shifting in his seat. "And Severus Snape knows this as well, but he decided not to tell you." He gave Malfoy a very significant look here, but got no response.

"It's about the castle. There's a secret passageway into Hogwarts, and I don't know where it is, but Snape does. Well, I think he does—he's not telling. I don't trust him at all, you know...anyway."

Malfoy watched him, not a flicker of emotion in his cool grey eyes. "That's it?"

"Well...isn't that important?" said Mulciber. "Once I find out where it is...the—" he lowered his voice to a whisper "—Dark Lord could take over Hogwarts in a matter of hours—completely bypass all this security—I mean, everyone knows Dumbledore is his greatest enemy."

Disdain sat very well on Lucius Malfoy's face. It was, in fact, his most-used expression.

"_Everyone_ knows very little about—ahem—_his_ plans, in fact. And he is not really in the habit of sharing them with overeager seventeen-year-old boys."

Mulciber was sixteen. He decided not to share that fact.

"You're welcome to try to get more information out of Snape," said Malfoy coolly, "but for God's sake don't do anything stupid. Nobody cares about making you feel important, Mulciber—this is much bigger than you." He stood. "Don't waste my time again unless you have real information."

Mulciber tipped back in his chair to meet the other's eyes, trying to look completely unintimidated. Malfoy held his gaze for a long moment before he swept out.

The front legs of the chair came down with a loud thunk.

_That's it? Do I really seem that pathetic, that easily dismissed?_

_This is important,_ thought Mulciber. _I know it is. _

He stood up and left, earning himself a dirty look from the bartender.

* * *

><p>The snow actually let up a little bit, so Julie just stayed outside, leaning on the wall, and went straight from one cigarette to another. Mary Macdonald passed, with some friends from Ravenclaw, and Marlene McKinnon went by as well, with Will and Brandon, the Gryffindor Beaters. Nobody stopped to talk to her, however, until James returned, coming out of the pub this time.<p>

"Can I have a drag?"

She looked askance at him. "Are you sure about that, Captain? Don't you want to keep yourself in better shape? Can't fly so fast with lung cancer, as _somebody_ once told me..."

He just looked at her until she gave him the cigarette, and then he took a long inhale.

"What happened to Niamh?"

Julie shrugged. "She ran off with her sister. Again."

"For Christ's sake, Scottie, why did you even agree to come with her?"

"Dunno," said Julie, not meeting his eye. "We're supposed to be friends..."

They had always been friends, Julie and Niamh, from the first week of first year, but their relationship had more to do with necessity than feelings, as far as she could tell—Niamh wanted someone to cling to, and Julie needed someone who actually paid attention in Herbology class.

And then fifth year had happened, and Niamh had first just sort of drifted, and then when Julie had asked her why she never wanted to spend time together Niamh had said flat out that she didn't have the time, because she was spending it with other people now. Like her twin sister, who thought Julie was a "bad influence."

And then Julie had actually scraped an A on her Herbology O.W.L., so it was perfectly fine.

"Wouldn't life be easier," James said pensively, handing the cigarette back, "if people could choose who they liked and who they hated?"

Julie exhaled and then gave him a crooked smile. "It would be deathly dull."

"Well," said James. Then he was silent, thinking. "Well. I think I could manage."

Julie stubbed out the cigarette, and then pulled herself up from her leaning position by grabbing his arm. "Sh'we go back? We're not getting any drier out here..."

"Sure."

It was maybe just one o' clock in the afternoon, but nevertheless, they made their way up to the castle. They talked about Quidditch and the holidays and what was most likely to happen to Professor Abbott before the end of the year, and they each slipped a few times on the icy road and then laughed at the other for doing the same, and it was only when Julie was stretched out next to the fire in the Gryffindor Common Room that she realized she had completely forgotten to buy a present for her mum.

* * *

><p>The last two weeks of term passed quickly. Julie and Lily didn't do a very good job with their Potions presentation, but Lily, at least, knew enough to just talk off the top of her head, and Professor Slughorn wasn't about to give her a bad mark anyway. They had exams, of course, but most of them were quite easy, and it seemed like no time at all before the students were on their way home.<p>

"So, we all wanted to be at home in Edinburgh for actual Christmas. So we're leaving on the twenty-sixth, and we're starting in Rome, and then there's Venice, Naples and Florence, but I don't remember the order? I'm pretty sure there's another one? I dunno, Milan?"

There was a crow keeping pace with the Hogwarts Express, flapping over the dense Scottish forest that the train cut straight through. The sky was a very pale, even gray, and the bird looked like nothing so much as an inkblot on a page.

Lily sighed wistfully. "You're _so_ lucky...my family never travels anywhere. I just get to stay in Cokeworth for three weeks."

Marlene shrugged. "I guess...I mean, Italy's nice, but I've been there before. I'd really like to go somewhere completely new."

The crow was slowly being overtaken by the train, the steady pumping of its wings no match for an engine.

"What about you, Julie?"

"What about—what?" said Julie, tearing her gaze away from the bird, "oh, sorry. I'm just staying at home with Mum and Amy."

"That's nice," said Marlene politely. Julie narrowed her eyes.

Lily turned to the fourth girl in the compartment, Mary Macdonald, who was sitting with her legs crossed at the ankles, holding a book closed on her lap.

"Oh, I'm just going home too," she said quietly. "Dublin. My gram's coming."

"I'm seeing my grandmother too," said Marlene excitedly. "I think she's meeting us in Venice—she has a house there—"

Julie stood up somewhat abruptly, and Ariel and Milo, Lily's owl, both screeched at her.

"I'm going to look for the lunch witch," Julie said calmly, and left.

The other side of the train faced onto a view that was almost the same—pine, birch, fir. Julie went up to the corridor window and looked out. The sky was empty and wide.

She still didn't have a Christmas present for Margaret, or, for that matter, Amy, but she was very glad to be going home.

"...no one would think it was you."

"Really, Padfoot? You don't think when the others wonder who let their delinquent mates into the prefect's compartment it might occur to them that I'm the only prefect with delinquent mates?"

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were coming down the corridor, arguing cheerfully.

"You make us sound so bad," Sirius scoffed. "All I want to do is—"

"—abuse my power?"

"You do realize you're the only person who cares? Honestly, don't you do anything besides eavesdrop?"

It took Julie a moment to realize that this second question was addressed to her, but she didn't turn around.

"Maybe you shouldn't have these conversations in public," she said.

"Right. Actually, Julie, I wanted to talk to you."

Remus muttered something under his breath and then wished Julie a Happy Christmas before going into his own compartment.

"Yeah, you too," she said, still without turning around.

Sirius leaned back against the window next to her, looking at her while she pretended to look out the window. His hair fell forward over his eyes; they were a very dark grey.

"Something you wanted to say?" she said finally, smiling a little bit.

"Not exactly," he said, and then she did turn her head, and he put his hand on her shoulder so that she turned her whole body. Then he kissed her.

For just a second she froze, shocked, and then she stepped closer, letting her eyes close, putting her hands on his shoulders. Neither of them was leaning on the wall anymore—how was his hand already up the back of her shirt?—and when the train hit a bump they stumbled a little bit and broke apart.

He stared at her for a moment, and then said, perfectly nonchalant, "So...write me."

"I'll see if I can find the time," said Julie, as cool as she could. He smiled—a little amused, and, she thought, a little admiring—and then he followed Remus into the compartment.

Julie turned back to the window, biting her lip. She could still hear her pulse beating in her ears when she set off to find the lunch trolley.


	10. Snow

**X. Snow**

Even though Platform Nine and Three Quarters was just as noisy, just as packed with people and just as hard to see across as it always was, there was still a sort of quiet in the air. The opaque, lifeless sky gave off an even light, almost oppressive in its uniformity, and she wondered if it might snow.

"Come on," said Marlene, impatient already, poking Lily in the arm.

Lily jumped down, and then turned around to take her heavy trunk from Mary, who had followed them. Julie hadn't reappeared, and Lily didn't think she would seek them out.

Marlene spotted her family right away. Just one of her brothers had come (Oscar, the youngest of three) together with her parents.

"Love you, write me," she said, throwing her arms around Lily and then Mary (who jumped) in quick succession, and then she dashed off—as fast as one can dash, pulling a trunk behind them.

Mary had spotted her mother, a small, round woman with wildly curly hair, and made a small, unintentional movement, as if she could duck behind Lily.

Lily smiled ruefully. "You aren't really looking forward to the holidays, are you?"

"It's going to be brutal," said Mary, only half joking, maybe only a quarter.

"We, who are about to die, salute you," said Lily, thinking of Petunia, speaking to the room at large. "Hey, can I write you?"

"Of course."

"Oh wait. Never mind, I'll just call you on the telephone, like a normal person."

Mary gave her a tiny smile. "That would be nice."

Lily was standing on her tiptoes, looking over the crowd—or trying to, although she wasn't tall enough to see much.

She could see Amy Fraser—or was it Amy King? Honestly, she wasn't sure how the last names in that family worked—standing by the wall, with an anxious expression on her face.

And there was Sirius Black, hands in the pockets of his Muggle jeans, letting a tall, glamorous woman in a blue salwar kameez kiss his cheek. _That's Mrs. Potter,_ Lily realized, and she had to force herself not to stare.

She was pretty sure that she was getting less uncomfortable around James, and she was very pleased with herself. A few days ago, they had been partnered in Herbology, and they had had an ordinary conversation about Quidditch. She could easily imagine that fifth year hadn't even happened.

Nigel had promised to write.

"Isn't that your dad?" said Mary, and Lily snapped out of her reverie.

* * *

><p>The Hogwarts Express only has two stops: Hogsmeade and King's Cross. As the crow flies, the distance from the school to the Frasers' little stone house is only about fifty kilometres. As Julie travels, she must take two additional trains just to get back to where she started.<p>

She and Amy had a half-hour wait in the Aberdeen train station, enough time to sit and eat a sandwich. It was growing late, and there weren't too many people around to stare at the two girls with two owls, yawning into their corned beef. On the train to Inverness, Amy fell asleep, face flattened against the window, drooling on the glass, while Julie watched her with a detached sort of interest and the old lady next to her frowned.

It was pitch black when they got off the Inverness-Beauly bus, midway along its route, pulling their heavy trunks behind them (December, this far north, the sun set in the afternoon). Margaret was waiting to walk them home.

They didn't talk much; just brushed their teeth and crawled into their beds. It had been a long day; but Julie was home now, and she couldn't remember everything she wanted to say to her mother, but she surely had time.

* * *

><p>The next morning Julie woke up late, with the smell of something sweet in the air. Someone was baking.<p>

She lay in bed for a long time, curled around her pillow, awake but unwilling to move. Her room was right behind the kitchen, and she could hear Amy babbling away, telling a long story about her Herbology project.

When she heard the scraping sound of something being taken out of the oven, she got up and dressed.

Margaret was leaning against the counter, drinking orange juice out of a wine glass. Amy was poking at a pan of bread. The air was warm and heavy and yeasty, and it was the best possible way to start a morning.

After breakfast, Julie got out her History of Magic notes, and Amy went upstairs, where she was frantically knitting Christmas gifts.

The sky was soft and steely both at once. When she went outside, Julie could taste snow in the air, like a promise. And there was a smell—pine needles, smoke and something she could not define: cold. It was her favorite time of year.

Children have a tendency to not notice things about their parents. It's funny, the way you can perfectly memorize someone, her beating heart and warm hands, and then you think you never need to see her again. And then one day your mother is old, and you don't know her or maybe you never did.

If Amy saw Margaret's wrist bones, pronounced in a way they had never been before, or if she watched the way her mother started at loud noises, it was only out of the corner of her eye. Julie didn't see anything at all.

* * *

><p>When Amy was little she used to wake up at six in the morning on Christmas and run through the house, getting everyone else out of bed. But she wasn't little anymore, so she sat in her room at six in the morning and ran her hands anxiously over the two soft wool pullovers she had made. She had been knitting since October. One was blue, for Julie, and one was gray, for Margaret—soft ocean and sky colors.<p>

There was not a single hole, not one dropped or twisted stitch, and Amy sat on her bed with thrills running up and down her spine. She loved Christmas.

Julie was already awake; as usual, she woke up not long after five—long before sunrise, and she lay in the dark for a long time. Then she wondered if anyone would notice if she smoked a cigarette, and she lay thinking about that for a long time, and then it was properly morning and she got up.

Margaret was awake early as well, reading the same poem over and over. The floorboards creaked softly, even when the people inside were still, thinking they had to be quiet, not knowing they were all awake: it was an old house.

The strange intermediate phase of early morning ended, and they had bacon and herring and eggs and porridge for breakfast. Julie had found a book for her mother—by "found" she definitely did not mean "stolen from the Hogwarts library," because she had Charmed away the call number—and for Amy, a gold necklace that she had gotten from Aunt Brigid when she turned seven.

Margaret gave both her children books: Emily Dickinson for the younger, T. S. Eliot for the older—which was a bit strange, because Julie was almost certain that she already had a copy of _The Wasteland,_ and besides, Margaret always gave them books. Getting something for Christmas that you've gotten every other day of the year isn't exactly exciting.

All in all, Amy was the only member of the family who made any sort of effort, but she didn't resent it. She was one of those rare creatures who genuinely enjoys knitting, and since she already owned an absurd number of sweaters, she had to give them away.

They didn't go to church—Julie dimly remembered going one Christmas, when she was very young, but they had never gone since. They just read their books, and then they had Christmas dinner, mostly cooked by Amy.

The days were so short, and it was dark again. They had a cup of tea, sitting around the small formica table, and then Amy went to bed.

Julie and Margaret sat in silence for a long while, the daughter leaning back on her chair legs, the mother staring at her own hands.

The front legs of the chair came down with a _thump_, and Julie said, "I'm going to bed."

They both stood; the mother went over to the cupboard and pulled out a bottle of wine, the daughter went to the doorway.

"Wait—Julie."

She turned, looked at her mother.

"Have a drink."

Julie stared. "You're offering me a drink? An actual alcoholic drink?"

Margaret shrugged, and the bottle in her hand moved through the air, yellow electric light catching the ruby glint of the wine in a seductive way. "You already smoke like a demon, clearly I've already gone wrong...you thought I wouldn't find out? Please. Have a drink."

Julie pulled out a chair and sat down, and her mother poured her a glass.

And then she took a sip. She hadn't drunk any alcohol since the firewhiskey she had split with James and Will Preston, after they lost their first Quidditch game. Now that she thought about it, the semester had been sort of uneventful.

Margaret was watching her, dreamily, and Julie couldn't tell if her mother was focusing intently on her face or not paying any attention at all.

"How's school?"

"Er, it's fine," said Julie, awkwardly gulping her wine.

Now Margaret was definitely focused on her. "No, really—how's school?"

Julie set down her glass. "Really, Mum, it's fine. I'm fine."

"No one's caused you any trouble?"

"Pfft. No."

"No one's said anything to you—talked about—not being a pureblood?"

"No..."

Margaret raised her eyebrows.

"Well, not to me," said Julie flatly. "People talk about it all the time, but not to me."

"Why's that?" asked Margaret, although she could guess.

The daughter shrugged. "I guess...I guess because I used a Trip Jinx on Nathaniel Avery in fourth year. And he fell down the stairs."

The mother bit her lip, feeling it would be inappropriate to smile. And she took a gulp of wine.

"Have a boyfriend?"

"No," said Julie honestly, although she did have plans.

"Good," said Margaret, refilling both of their glasses. "Boys are a distraction."

Julie didn't disagree.

They were both silent as Margaret went through her second glass. Julie, more wary, took small, shallow sips. She was pretty confident in her ability to hold her liquor, but the thought of getting at all tipsy in front of her mother was embarrassing enough to restrain her.

"Are you in love?"

Julie choked on her own spit. "God, _no_."

"Good."

Even to Julie, this seemed unusually cynical, and she raised an eyebrow. Margaret poured another glass and frowned at the bottle, as if it wasn't holding up the way she'd hoped.

"If you love someone once," Margaret said quietly, "you're always soft for them. Just a little bit. You can never be as strong as you used to be. Or else—you start to hate them."

She had bright, dark blue eyes. Julie's eyes were pale gray, like her father's.

"You have to be strong, Julia. Promise me."

"Mum," said Julie, "you're drunk."

Margaret rolled her eyes. "No, just sentimental," she said, standing up suddenly, "—probably time for bed."

Julie smiled with one half of her mouth, and Margaret gave her shoulder a little push with the tips of three fingers. Then she went upstairs, and Julie sat at the table for a long time. It was too dark to look out the window, and she looked into it instead, watching her reflection, the light bulb, the half-empty bottle and the telephone.

Somehow the house seemed so small, and flat. Maybe it had been that way in the summer, too; now she couldn't remember. When she was very young, she had thought that it looked like a witch's cottage: gray stone walls, wood floors, brick chimney. Then she realized that she actually was a witch, and suddenly all she could see was the ordinariness, the Muggle furniture, the linoleum in the tiny kitchen and the ugly, roll-down window shades in the bedrooms.

But now it looked unreal. It looked like the set for a play, the stage where she had acted out the last sixteen and a half years; nothing more.

* * *

><p>The Potters always had the same thing for Christmas dinner: roast turkey, roast potatoes, mince pies and plum pudding. On Boxing Day, they had Indian food.<p>

James' mother didn't cook it herself—in fact, James was pretty sure that Avanti Potter had never cooked a day in her life—but a house-elf had come along with her from Punjab. It wasn't even particularly fancy food: chicken tikka, naan or roti, and his favorite, semolina halva with pale green pistachios stuck all through it. It wasn't any kind of a holiday, or celebration. It was just a quiet way for Mrs. Potter to point out how much she hated Christmas.

Every Boxing Day Mr. Potter would point out that perhaps they ought to give the house-elves a day off, and Mrs. Potter would suggest that they take the day off after they cook her damn dinner, and then Mr. Potter would say that she sounded more English than he did, and then she would roll her eyes, and he would kiss her, and James, if he hadn't already, would promptly leave the room.

That year, Sirius was there. He had come in the summer—not even late in the summer—the second week of June, with his school trunk half-filled with a mess of robes and blue jeans and a black eye that he wouldn't explain until he was alone with James, after midnight. The next morning, while Sirius was sleeping—or, more accurately, passed out—James tried to tell just enough of the story to his parents to gain their sympathy, but it turned out he didn't need to; they were already sympathetic.

That year, the phone rang while they were eating.

For a minute, nobody actually recognized the sound. James actually couldn't remember hearing it ring ever before, and he wasn't entirely sure what it was. Sirius was scraping out the bottom of the rice bowl, and Mr. Potter had just stuffed a particularly large piece of chicken in his mouth, which he was chewing awkwardly but with great enthusiasm.

Mrs. Potter put her fork and knife down with a _clang_.

"Alexander."

"Mmf—what?"

She jerked her head toward the study door, and everyone went quiet. Then it was clear: the harsh, ugly sound of the perfectly ordinary telephone, muffled by the papers that had covered it for months.

Mr. Potter stood up, and his pale face had gone paler. Mrs. Potter was looking him steadily in the eyes in a way that could be intimidating or encouraging. James and Sirius were looking from one to the other, the latter with curiosity, the former with concern.

"Right," said Mr. Potter, and he walked into the study.

He closed the door behind him, but it didn't make a difference. They could hear him if they tried, and they were all trying.

"Hello? Clarisse, hi. No, don't worry about it...Oh. I see."

There was a very long pause. Avanti put her hand to her mouth and twisted it, as if she were trying to keep herself from speaking.

"Thank you for letting me know...Clarisse, it's fine, I asked you to call...in the event of...really. Thank you. Yes, as we discussed—especially Miss Skeeter, try to keep her off this...Thank you. Happy New Year."

The phone clicked on to the hook, and then there was a silence, heavy and slow.

The study door opened, and Mr. Potter met his wife's eyes.

"Her...?" she asked.

He sounded as if his throat were dry. "Ava."

She stood up. "Boys, why don't you go upstairs?"

Sirius obediently got up, willing to tear himself away from the food for the sake of avoiding another family's drama, but James needed a hard glare from his mother to make him go.

The doors must have been too thin in the Potters' house, because when James paused on the stairwell outside, he could plainly hear what his father said, and the words he said and the voice he spoke in sent a shiver through the boy's stomach.

* * *

><p>December 26th dawned bright and cloudy, and Margaret decided to clean the attic. The house was only two stories high; she and Amy each had a bedroom on the second floor, and the rest was a big, unfinished room that had probably been a mess a hundred years ago. Margaret had decided to clean it months ago, but trying to sort the musty old books and records, get rid of the moth-eaten clothes and carry out the few broken-legged chairs was tedious, tedious work; neither of her daughters could summon any energy for it at all.<p>

They had ham sandwiches and milk for lunch, and Amy put on a Carpenters record, putting Julie in an even worse mood.

Margaret, on the other hand, seemed cheerful—as cheerful as she had been the entire holiday. She was humming along to "Close to You," a gross betrayal of artistic taste in Julie's opinion, and didn't really mind the girls acting silly instead of paying attention to their work.

The record ended, and then Julie suggested Patti Smith, and Amy protested, so they had silence. So when the knock on the door came, around three, they could hear it easily.

Two knocks, a pause, two knocks.

Amy was standing on a stepstool in front of a bookshelf and she slipped, old, red-leather-bound books tumbling down around her. Julie went to help her up, both of them laughing. And then they heard the door opening, even though it should have been locked, and the smiles slid off their faces.

There was an indistinct jumble of voices, at least four people, at least one woman.

"Now," Margaret whispered, "why _now_, damn you!"

The woman laughed in response to one of her companions, and then one of the men called out, "Meggie!"

Margaret rolled her head forward, like an athlete preparing to re-enter the field, and then she said, in a calm, low voice: "Whatever you do, do not leave this room."

"Why?" asked Julie quickly, gripping the book in her hands until her fingers hurt.

"Just be quiet," the mother hissed, "and stay here!"

She turned and went out into the hallway. Without hesitation Julie thrust the book at Amy, who took it with a frightened whimper, and ran after her. At the top of the stairs Margaret turned and saw her.

"Julia! _Do as I say!_"

And she was gone. Julie lunged for the stairs, but Amy was behind her and grabbed at her sweater. They wrestled silently for a moment., but then the voices began again and they were still, listening as hard as they could.

"Meg. You don't look a day older." This was a woman, velvet-voiced and malicious.

"Dear Bella. I wish I could say the same for you." Margaret spoke as lightly as if she were at a garden party.

The woman, Bella, laughed, and the hairs on the back of Julia's neck stood up.

"Touching as this reunion is..." said one of the men, and there was a creak of floorboards, as if more than one person were shifting their weight.

"I'm sure you have questions for me," said Margaret. "Perhaps we could move this conversation outside?"

One of the men was murmuring something, and Julie was trying to convince Amy to let her go down the stairs while Amy tried to make her stay. After a bit more rolling on the ground and hair pulling, they heard the door open and slam closed. Julie sprang up and ran into Margaret's bedroom to look out the window.

There were four of them, wearing black cloaks and masks—definitely wizards. Margaret had no coat; she was only wearing blue jeans and her gray pullover that Amy had given her the day before. Julie thought she saw her mother glance up at the window before she led the four strangers around to the back of the house.

She tore across the hallway, dashing into her own bedroom to look out the back window. Amy was sitting on the top of the staircase, her face worried, eyes already wet—but Julie had no time for her.

The five people outside were talking—she could make out no words, but they were upset. One of them was pointing and gesturing at Margaret, and the other three were surrounding her, talking all at once.

Julie put her hands against the freezing window glass. Twilight was already settling in, and the light gray sky was turning a sweet dusky blue.

Margaret had her arms crossed and she was shaking her head. Soft, smothering silence covered the attic Julie was standing in, covered the field she was watching over, sank down and filled in every crevice of every dead and living thing. The air was like cotton wool and the minutes stretched and stretched like elastic as Julie watched one of the dark figures raise a wand.

Point.

Pale, poisonous green light. Like the light in a hospital at night, like the light in a morgue.

Gray sky and green light. Margaret Fraser fell up and arched back, and held, lifted in the air and curved so gracefully, and then gently she sank to the earth.

And the elastic minutes snapped back, the clocks began to tick again twice as fast and Julia turned and ran, fast like a startled rabbit or a deer, except she wasn't running away—she was running towards—

Amy was sitting on the stairs afraid but she had no time _she had no time_ so she pushed past her and clattered down the steps, there were fourteen steps—

And she pulled the door open like she could pull it off its hinges and she was around the house and they were gone.

The wizards in black were gone, but here was her mother in her gray pullover still.

She was still.

And as Julie sank to her knees, as she stumbled to the ground and put one hand to the fine gray wool and one to the smooth, cooling cheek, the sky finally made up its mind, and the day, which was already almost over, chose what sort of day to be. It started to snow.

First very light, sparse, dry snowflakes, and then heavier. Tiny, feathery crystals, that melted into drops of water on the daughter's shaking hands, crystals that collected, unthawed, on the mother's marble skin.

The earth turned paper white as the sky grew dark.


	11. Elegie

**XI. Elegie**

Here are the known facts of Margaret Fraser's life.

Born in Edinburgh, January second, 1933. Sister, Brigid, and brother, James: ten years older. James deceased, 1945. Parents deceased. Not sure when.

Married to Richard King, 1959. Separated, 1966. Would have preferred to separate sooner.

Two children.

Julia Martha King.

Amanda Elizabeth King.

She never knew that Julia introduced herself as a Fraser. If she had, she would have been flattered, and she would have put a stop to it.

* * *

><p>It was Julie who brought the body inside. For a moment she hesitated to levitate it, not wanting to attract any attention. Then she realized that surely someone from the Ministry would come anyway—someone had been <em>murdered, <em>oh my God—

She did the spell. Nobody came.

And it was Julie who called 999, although she wasn't sure that was the right thing to do—it wasn't as if she had been trained for this. The last time Beauly's one ambulance had been called out was in August, when a tourist fell in Loch Ness.

It was Julia, again, who told the two paramedics (uncomfortable, perhaps slightly relieved that there was no one they needed to save) that her mother had gone to bed with a migraine and that she had headaches pretty often, she thought. And when one of the men suggested an aneurysm, Julie said, with a delicate choke, that she didn't think further examinations were necessary, as she and her sister would like to privately grieve, and a quick funeral would really be easiest, you know?

(Surely, when a sixteen-year-old uses two Confundus Charms in a row, right in front of two Muggles, someone ought to find out, and get her in trouble. And still, nobody came.)

It was Amy who cried. Julie was pale and composed, and Amy cried enough for both of them. If, that is, one can cry _enough_—for such a thing, who knows?

It was Julie who called Aunt Brigid; sitting on the kitchen table with her legs swinging, she listened to her aunt begin to weep. Once again she found herself watching her reflection as the sky grew dark. It was a little vague—the room was dim, the window clouded—and she could pretend she was looking at her mother. Auburn hair (a little darker than Julie's), elegant face (not so skinny), arched eyebrows and thin lips.

But that came later. Before all that, Julie got out a cigarette and lit it with shaking hands, and sat by the body. You think of snow as silent, but it isn't always; it hissed as it came down, a scratchy, achingly indifferent sound that made her think of other planets, moons where other kinds of snow fell and no life existed to see it.

And something deep and high inside of her broke. There is no other way to describe it. Something shattered into tiny shards, and the shards melted away, and whatever it used to be, it was gone.

* * *

><p>Aunt Brigid arrived six hours later, in her familiar Chevrolet with the chipped blue paint. She started sniffing before she even got out of the car, and bestowed tearful hugs on each of her nieces. Brigid was as tall as her little sister, with matching blue eyes, but her hair was darker and her face was wider and softer.<p>

It was nearly nine o'clock, and the girls had not eaten dinner, so she got out a frying pan and made them bacon and eggs. In the morning, she called the funeral home and the Presbyterian church, and in the afternoon, she went to meet the reverend.

"I don't want you to worry," she told the girls as she left. "I can take care of everything." Amy smiled weakly and Julie tolerated her.

Only ten minutes after she drove away, a visitor appeared.

He was a tall, blond man with light gray eyes. He looked to be in his mid-40s and he wore a plain dark suit. His hair was carefully waved, his black shoes shone, and his tie was elegant and boring; he could have been a second-rate fifties film star.

Despite the wand in his pocket, the stranger opened the door with a key.

Julie was directly inside, holding her own wand behind her back. Her face was blank.

"What are you doing here?" she said, with a lazy kind of spite.

"You could have called me," said her father.

He spoke with an American accent.

She turned away, tacitly inviting him in, and put her wand in her pocket. "I didn't think you would care."

He was speechless, and she had nothing else to say.

Amy came downstairs. "Dad!" she said, surprised, and then he—Richard—held out his arms and she jumped into them.

Julie went upstairs. Later, she listened to his and Aunt Brigid's voices in the living room. She was certain they were talking about her, but she didn't care enough to move closer, to eavesdrop, or farther, to escape.

The funeral was held two days later, and it was a graveside service. Aunt Brigid and Richard organized it, and Brigid gave the eulogy. It was short; she talked about their childhood in Edinburgh, their older brother, Jamie, their parents, and then, briefly, Margaret's feelings about her children. "Motherhood was the most beautiful part of my sister's life," she said, fiddling with her pearl necklace. The gathering was small—Margaret had no other family, and not many of their neighbors came—but Brigid was still a nervous speaker.

_The most beautiful?_ Julie wondered vaguely. She remembered her parents fighting about who would change Amy's nappies once or twice; she remembered Margaret grabbing her hair and scrubbing her face so hard that her head wobbled around on her neck. She could not imagine her mother saying or even thinking something so saccharine.

Reverend Finlay led the short service. "A reading from the Book of Isaiah," he said in his thin, reedy voice.

Julie let her attention waver in and out. Odd details caught her eye—that necklace that Brigid would not stop twisting, the way the dull white sun caught on her father's hair, another man's glasses, the inscription on a nearby headstone.

Her knees were bending, about to give out.

_"...On this mountain he will destroy_  
><em>the shroud that enfolds all peoples,<em>  
><em>the sheet that covers all nations;<em>  
><em>he will swallow up death forever..."<em>

Amy was crying again, on the other side of the grave. The deep, even rectangle divided the ragged group of parishioners, so that they could look across it and try to decide whether their neighbor's face was blank with shock, grief, or boredom.

The casket was lowered, and the Reverend said a final prayer. There weren't many strangers in the crowd: a fat, dark-haired woman, who might have come from Edinburgh, a stooped man with a heavily lined face and his son, a blond boy who caught Julie's eye and smiled uncertainly. The man with the glasses caught Julie's eye again, and she blinked. He was tall and thin, with messy black hair and a long dark overcoat. She couldn't believe she hadn't recognized him before.

"Julie?" said a tentative voice. She turned.

It was Ian Forester. He was holding a wide, flat paper bag, obviously a record.

"I'm...so sorry for your loss," he started awkwardly. She nodded. "I, er, I got you _Leave Home_...the record store only stocked it a few days ago...anyway, hope you like it."

Julie, obviously, didn't keep up with the music magazines she and Ian both loved while at Hogwarts, and she had no idea what _Leave Home_ was. She accepted the paper bag, however, and didn't look inside, just nodded again.

"Anyway, I don't suppose you'll be coming to ours for Hogmanay again?"

Julie kept her face impassive, but inwardly she winced. The Foresters always had a huge party for New Year's, and last year she and Ian had had sex for the first time in an upstairs bedroom, both of them slightly too drunk to really enjoy the experience.

"No, I don't think so," she said, a condescending edge to her voice. "I'm hoping to stay with a friend for the rest of the hols."

"Oh—of course—"

"Excuse me, I have to talk to..." she murmured, brushing past.

She could feel his eyes on the back of her neck, and it was extremely irritating.

It was a small gathering, but everyone seemed to think they had something to say to her. _Lovely woman...so sorry...greatly missed...sorry...sorry..._

The soft words and the gray and green colors of the churchyard blended together, and dreamlike she moved around the grave. Again her eyes were drawn to it, the flat square angles contrasting with the grass, the weathered, rounded stones nearby. _Not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve..._

(Nobody would mail books to her at Hogwarts, ever again.)

Her voice was flat as well, a sharp, real sound that cut through the fog of her thoughts. "Mr. Potter."

The man turned around, slowly, unsurprised. "Ah. Julia..."

He had his son's nose. Or rather James had his father's nose. They were the same height as well, the same hair, even the same glasses, and his long-fingered hands, wrapped around a furled umbrella, were familiar from endless Chaser drills. But Alexander Potter had light freckles on his cheekbones, and blue-green eyes.

"I'm sorry," he started.

Julie actually rolled her eyes, and he stopped, and waited for her to speak.

"You work for the Ministry, don't you, Mr. Potter?"

"I—yes, I do."

She fixed her pale eyes on him. Dressed all in black, her hair scraped back, she seemed much older than sixteen, and she had the wild, haggard look of an insomniac.

"The Department of Magical Law Enforcement, correct?"

She knew all this; she knew he was the head of the department; he showed up in the newspaper often enough.

"Yes. Julia, I wanted to—"

"Will there be an investigation?"

"—if—what?"

Julie's flat stare got flatter. "An _investigation_," she said, making a small gesture towards the grave, "Homicide. Your department."

"Oh," he said softly, and then again, "Oh. Miss Fraser...the Ministry doesn't...have the resources, at this time, to conduct investigations into ordinary Muggle killings, where it's felt...it's felt the motive is clear. I'm sorry."

"No," she said so forcefully that he blinked, and tried to explain more, but "—no, the motive wasn't clear, and there was nothing ordinary about it. They knew her, one of the men called it a reunion—she knew the woman's name—she died for a reason and _I watched it_ so don't fucking tell me that you don't have the fucking resources because you don't _fucking care_."

Rather than answer immediately, Mr. Potter took off his glasses. He blew on them, misting the lenses, and then he got a snow-white handkerchief out of his pocket, and wiped them. When he had hooked the glasses on his ears and settled them onto his nose, he looked up again, and Julie saw with shock that his eyes were wet.

"Julie," he said, "I am _so_ sorry—no, don't stop me, I am so sorry that you had to experience that. Your mother didn't intend that—she never intended for you to get mixed up in this. But what you just told me—" He stepped closer, and lowered his voice even further. "—it is _essential_ that you keep that to yourself. I can't stress this enough, and I can't tell you more, and I'm _sorry_, but it is very much in your interest for there to be no investigation."

"You've got to be joking," she said, shaking her head.

"No," he said, actually catching her shoulder, "Julie, you have to trust me. Meg loved you—she loved you more than anyone—and she didn't tell you anything. You can't possibly think she wanted some—some Ministry hacks going through her private business?"

For the first time in the last four days, Julie thought she might cry. Mr. Potter took a step back, dropping his hand, but he kept eye contact.

"And why, exactly, do you think you know so much?" she said angrily. "You haven't told me when you made Margaret's acquaintance."

"Oh, she—she—I met Richard, when he worked for Wizarding Wireless Network."

Richard himself had just come up behind Julie, so it was an easy thing to say.

"Mr. Potter," he said, putting his hand protectively on his daughter's shoulder. She calmly stepped to the side, and he put his hands in his pockets.

"Hello, Mr. Fraser," said Mr. Potter politely. Everyone there was perfectly aware that he had gotten the last name wrong, but nobody was about to point it out. Richard pinched his lips, as if he had heard that one before.

"Julie," he said, "Mrs. MacLachlan has invited us to her house for tea. Do you want to come? Amy and Brigid are coming."

"No, thanks," said Julie, "I'll take the bus home."

"Julia. She's a nice lady..."

"Well, I'm not," said Julie. "I'll take the bus home. I have another question for you, Mr. Potter."

"Fire away," he said.

"The Death Eaters. Why didn't they kill me and Amy?"

Richard made a small noise in his throat.

"That one is easy. They didn't know you existed..."

The last few of the neighbours were dropping flowers into the grave—chrysanthemums, lilies, and an old man with two red poppies.

"You're going to miss the bus, Jules," Richard said tiredly.

"You don't even know the bus schedule," she said. "because you don't live here. Daddy."

But she nodded to James' father and left.

"If I were a Death Eater," she heard Mr. Potter say, "I would stay far away from that girl."

Richard made another small, noncommittal noise.

She turned back at the cemetery gate. Mr. Potter had produced a spray of lilacs, and he walked to Margaret's grave, said something to Richard, who was still at his side, and dropped them. The pale, luminous flowers, floating into the earth, were the last thing Julie saw before her eyes blurred and she walked away.

* * *

><p>The house was so empty, so quiet and still, that she felt like a thief as she came in. She went up to Margaret's bedroom and she stepped through the doorway and stared at the room around her, paralyzed by the enormity of the task ahead of her. The bed was clumsily made, clean white sheets and blankets pulled up to the headboard.<p>

There was a book lying on top of it, the book Margaret had been reading all week, thin, bound in green. Julie opened it to the bookmark.

_...Yet a few days, and thee_  
><em>The all-beholding sun shall see no more<em>  
><em>In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,<em>  
><em>Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,<em>  
><em>Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist<em>  
><em>Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim<em>  
><em>Thy growth, to be resolv'd to earth again...<em>

She flipped through the pages and closed it again. Then she turned to the bedside table. She pulled the drawer all the way out (thief) and set in on the bed. Pens, pencils, and hairpins covered the bottom, but there was a stack of papers on top, and she lifted them out. On the top there was an envelope with _Julia_ written on it in her mother's hand.

She slipped out the paper inside and smoothed it out.

_My dearest,_ she read.

_Sweetheart._

_If this letter should find you, or you find this letter, then I am no longer there to keep you away from it. I would like to say that I have done everything I could to keep you and Amanda safe, but—honestly—I haven't. This is my last chance to protect you._

_Julie, I know you, I know how you feel. I've addressed this letter to you and not to Amy because she, I am sure, has no plans for any investigation. Don't try to solve any mysteries. Do not act on all your impulses. Don't look for answers, don't look for reasons. The less you know about my life the safer you will be._

_I have fixed the mistakes I made. Don't make them again._

_Margaret._

The last words she had heard in her mother's voice: _Do as I say._

Julie carefully refolded the letter. She slid it into the envelope and set it on the corner of the bed.

And then she began her investigation.

* * *

><p>Margaret's room was almost embarrassingly empty. Besides the bed and bedside table, there was a basket chair in the corner and nothing else. No rug on the hardwood floor, only a plain white curtain on the window.<p>

The rest of the papers Julie had pulled out of that one drawer were unhelpful; birthday and Christmas cards, from Aunt Brigid and a few of the neighbors. Mrs. MacLachlan, who was nosy, according to Margaret, and Mrs. Forester, whom Margaret had once called "the bitch across the street." She had gone to university, but no university friends had written her.

All she was left with was the closet. The sliding door stuck and squeaked as she shouldered it aside. She pushed through the coats and dresses and lifted each stack of neatly folded shirts and trousers, even making sure nothing was hidden under the brassieres. There was a pair of red patent leather heels that she had never seen her mother wear, and she examined them and then set them aside, thinking she might as well get something out of the whole enterprise. Then she got entirely distracted, and pulled out a silver cocktail dress and two blouses before she went back to her real search.

On the highest shelf, there were two hatboxes. Julie might have been kept from them once, simply because they were hard to see, but she was taller now than her mother had been, and, not even standing on her tiptoes, she lifted them down.

The first was half-full with photographs. On top there was one of Jamie and Brigid, he with his arm around his sister and she clutching a wrinkled baby—Margaret. She turned it over. In an unfamiliar, spidery hand, someone—perhaps her grandmother, who had died long before Julie was born—had written, _James, Brigid, and Maisie, 1931._

There was another, smaller picture of Jamie, in his RAF uniform. He looked very much like Margaret, the same sharp nose and sparkling eyes.

The next picture she picked up was in color, and it was moving. A wizard's photograph. It was of Richard and Margaret, in a garden somewhere. They were standing under a trellis, laughing and holding on to each other, and yellow flowers were blooming all around them. Late afternoon light shone on their hair. They both looked incredibly young.

There was nothing written on the back.

The rest of the pictures were mostly of Julie and Amy, and they were all Muggle photos. Still and a little blurry, they made a sharp contrast to that one, vibrant, moving picture—like seeing a living thing and then seeing the same creature encased in amber. There were a few of Margaret too, and she usually looked as if she didn't want her picture taken. Richard must have taken them all; the most recent were dated 1966, when he had left.

He had caught Margaret unaware just once; there was one photo of her looking out the kitchen window, with her elbows on the sink, and somehow he had been lucky enough (he certainly wasn't particularly skilled) to get just the right angle. The sun was setting and it lit up her hair—loose around her shoulders, not pulled back as it usually was—colouring it fiery orange. There was a funny expression on her face. She almost looked sweet.

Julie took that picture and put the rest back, and opened the second hatbox.

This one was full of papers. There was Margaret's passport—her name still listed as _Margaret Fraser King_—and a photocopy of her driving license. Amy's birth certificate listed all familiar information: Raigmore Hospital, 3:23 p.m. on October 4th.

Underneath there was another birth certificate, but this one had _City of New York_ written across the top. She read it through, and then read it again.

Mount Sinai Hospital. Margaret Fraser King. Richard Andrew King. 1960.

It was her own birth certificate.

"What the fuck..." she muttered.

The empty room did not respond.

Everyone makes their own birth into a story; but it seems common sense that we should know how it happened—we were, after all, unquestionably there. Julie turned the paper over in her hands, trying to convince herself that it was fake. Her story was a very simple one: born in Inverness, Scotland, in 1960, in the same hospital that her sister would come out of four years later, to a loving mother and a not-particularly-loving father...

"I'm an American citizen," Julie whispered with horror.

Carefully, as if she were handling something explosive, she put the certificate on the stack of things she was taking. Another lie, and she couldn't understand the necessity...she knew that Margaret had gone to New York with Richard just after they married, for a vacation, but her mother had always told her that they returned once she became pregnant.

Apparently not.

And the hatbox wasn't empty yet; there was one more unpleasant surprise for Julie, under the marriage certificate, other papers from Richard's job with the radio, divorce papers. A shape that she almost recognized but _no, not even Margaret—_

A gun, a small, ugly black handgun lying in the bottom of the box. She picked it up gingerly—she didn't know anything about guns, couldn't even tell if it was loaded or not—set it aside and then put the hatboxes away.

She had a dress, two blouses, a pair of shoes, one photograph, her birth certificate, and a handgun. She had learned pretty much nothing, but with good timing, because the door was opening downstairs and the remnants of her family were coming inside, talking with loud, empty voices, and now her father was calling her name.

She stowed her mother's things in her own bedroom, and then she went downstairs.

* * *

><p>Richard was in the kitchen, getting an ice cube for his whiskey. Julie was well aware that he wasn't going to offer her a drink, so she took a swig straight from the bottle when his back was turned. Amy sniffed in a way that clearly said she could be a tattletale, if she wanted to, but she was choosing to be the better person in the room.<p>

"Aunt Brigid is having a lie-down," said Richard, pulling out a chair. Julie just stared at him. It made him nervous, which made her a little bit happier.

"So, um," he started, "I wanted to talk to you girls."

He was looking at Julie as if expecting a response, and she looked back at him unblinkingly. Finally Amy broke the silence.

"What is it, Dad?"

"I think you should finish the school year in America," he said abruptly.

There was a pause while Amy digested that.

"No," Julie said.

Her father ignored her.

"Actually," said Amy slowly, "I don't really want to do that. I'd rather stay at Hogwarts until the end of this year, and then start somewhere else for third year. I don't...I mean, I'd like to move. But I want to see my friends and finish exams."

Richard sighed. "Right. That makes sense...I'll talk to your aunt. Julie—"

"You're joking, right? I'm staying here."

"Julie," he said, making an effort to sound sympathetic, "I'm sorry. I don't think it's safe for you to stay here. The political situation is only getting worse; you're a half-blood, you'll be targeted. I know you feel—loyal, I guess, to your mom, but she's gone and I have to take care of you now."

"Oh, now you want to _take care of me_?" She drew herself up, letting out a tiny bit of sixteen years of accumulated anger. It was like twisting the lid of a soda bottle, letting out the fizz a few bubbles at a time. "I'll be an adult in four months, _Richard_, it's a little late to play the concerned parent now—you can't fucking abandon your family and then order me to move to _Kansas_ or wherever you want—who's going to _target_ me? I'm not afraid of Mulciber or Avery or Snape or their dolled-up, racist parents. I don't give a _shit_, and I can take. Care. Of myself."

"My god," said Richard, bitterly, softly, "Margaret really did a job on you, didn't she..."

Julie stared at him, dead-eyed. "I'm staying with a friend until the start of term," she said calmly. "I won't need a ride to the train station."

"What friend?" asked Amy. Because Amanda King was actually a nice person—she tried, anyway—she didn't follow this up with "you don't have any friends." But it was on the tip of her tongue. And Julie, who could tell, silently stood up and left the room.

* * *

><p>There were three phone numbers in the back of her fifth-year Transfiguration book. She couldn't stay with Niamh, because that would mean staying with Siobhan, who hated her, and she had barely spoken to Mary in the last six months. That left one option.<p>

"Hello?" said an unfamiliar voice, a woman's voice. "Evans residence."

"I'm calling for Lily," Julie replied.

"And who is this?" the voice enquired. There was an indistinct squabble in the background, and then someone said very loudly _give me the phone Petunia!_ Then there was a grunt and a squeak. Julie got the impression that Petunia had been kicked in the shins.

"Hi," said Lily breathlessly, "it's Lily."

"This is Julie."

There was a pause, a moment of surprise. "Oh. Oh, hi!" Lily repeated. "Um, how are you?"

"Not great," said Julie. She got to the point. "Sorry to ask, but I need a place to stay for the next week..."

"Oh," said Lily yet again—this was a very surprising phone call for her. "Did something happen?"

"You could say that," said Julie curtly. "My mother's dead."

Silence. Long, yawning silence, while Lily ran through a litany of phrases, all very familiar to her, all very useless.

"Of course you can stay," she said finally. "Let me talk to my dad, and I'll call you back."

* * *

><p>Julie ended up getting a ride to the train station from Isla Forester, Ian's older sister. This could have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't; Isla, who had been a few years ahead in primary school, had all of her brother's friendliness without his high expectations.<p>

"So, you and Ian are completely over, right?" she said as they pulled into the parking lot. Isla had a habit of chewing gum, and she cracked a bubble as she backed her car up.

"Yeah."

"Right," said Isla, "so...I know he's a git sometimes, but just—don't be too hard on him. He's a bit naive."

"Yeah..." Julie said slowly.

Isla laughed. "Just let him down easy. I'm not sayin' you should take him back or anything. Anyway. This is your last year of school, yeah?"

"Next year."

"Right." Isla cracked her gum again. "So are you gonna come back next summer, or is this it for you?"

Julie hesitated. "Oh—I hadn't really thought about it."

"'S fine," said Isla. "My cousin's coming from Glasgow for the summer, though, and she plays electric bass, so we were thinking of starting a band—I could teach you to play the drums."

"Oh," said Julie again. "...that would be nice."

She felt as if she were dreaming. She had felt that way since she had seen that green light, the arc of Margaret's body against the dull ground. She could barely remember how she had started this conversation, but she thought she would remember that precise shade of green for all of her life.

Isla got Julie's luggage out of the boot of the car. "Remind me what this is for?" she asked, holding up the owl cage. Julie had sent Ariel ahead to Lily's, figuring that he would cause trouble on the train, but she wasn't prepared for the question.

"It's, er, a birdcage."

"Yeah, I see that. Why do you have a bird cage?"

"Biology project," Julie snapped. "We have to keep a canary."

"Right," said Isla slowly, "so where's the canary?"

"It died," Julie answered. "Thank you so much for the ride."

She took the cage out of Isla's hands, grabbed her trunk, and made her way inside the train station.

* * *

><p>Lily's house was shabby and comfortable, with matching furniture in the sitting room and family photos hung on the papered walls. Lily showed Julie the air mattress on her bedroom floor and introduced her to Mr. Evans and Petunia, both of whom couldn't seem to help glancing at Julie out of the corners of their eyes. She wondered if she was the first witch or wizard they had met besides Lily, and then she remembered that Snape was from Cokeworth as well—a good reason, in her opinion, to be wary of anyone magical.<p>

Julie remembered perfectly well when Mrs. Evans had died, in the fall of last year, some sort of accident—or maybe a quick illness? In a way, it made it easier to be there. Lily let her keep to herself, and she spent most of the days wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the wide windowsill of Lily's bedroom, reading very slowly. She only read her schoolbooks, and she got ahead in most of her classes.

Mr. Evans was very quiet, and kind. Part of his nervousness around Julie, not that she realized it, came from what Lily had told him about why she was there. There was no way around it, and for the first time, Lily sat down and actually told him that non-magical people were being killed. He had nothing but good intentions toward Julie, and yet—she carried a whiff of danger with her. She was a messenger, a portent. The first sign of chaos in his ordinary, slow-moving life. Words like _Death Eater, Voldemort,_ until now, just so many nonsense words, were becoming threats. To his daughter, to himself. To the refugee in his house, with the thin face and the pale eyes, who didn't seem to eat or sleep—are you surprised that he didn't know what to say to her?

Petunia spoke to her once. She came into Lily's room, looking for her sister, and instead found Julie, sitting on the floor with her star charts spread out around her. Cautiously she stepped across the carpet and peeked over Julie's shoulder.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Mapping the stars," Julie answered, unself-consciously grand. "This is the last Mars transit in 1905—here's Mars, here's the earth, Deimos and Phobos—those are the moons." She tapped each dot on her chart with a quill as she mentioned them.

Fascinated despite herself, Petunia crouched down and put a finger on Phobos. "What's the point?"

Julie snorted. "God, I don't know. It's homework."

"Huh," said Petunia, tracing an orbit.

The door opened, and Lily came in. "What's going on?" she said, raising her eyebrows.

Petunia stood up so fast she nearly lost her balance. "Dad wants you to help with dinner," she said tightly.

"Right."

Lily waited for her sister to leave, and then she closed the door behind her, shooting Julie an annoyed glance. And that was the last conversation Julie had with Petunia.

* * *

><p>Lily needed new potion supplies, and more importantly, she needed to get away from her sister before she slowly lost her mind, so she took Julie to London. It wasn't a very cheerful trip; some of the shops on Diagon Alley were boarded up, and others had posters in the windows with black and white pictures, WANTED written below the faces. Julie kept drifting to a stop in front of the posters, examining them, and Lily had to nudge her along. When somebody called her name, Lily jumped, and her knuckles tightened around her wand.<p>

"Lily! It's me!"

"Me" was a woman with dark blond hair and a round face, running across the street without looking both ways. Lily relaxed her shoulders and smiled.

"Hi, Alice," she said, opening her arms for an enormous bear hug.

Julie looked at her reflection in the nearest shop window. She looked good, she thought, all things considered. Her hair was a little tangled, but that was normal.

"You remember Alice Montague, right?" said Lily. "She graduated in our fourth year?"

"Of course," Julie said politely.

"How's the training?" Lily asked.

"I'm done," said Alice, with a wide smile. "Started my real job two months ago. I'm an Auror now."

"Oh my god! Congratulations!"

There was a small hole in Julie's sweater, and she wondered if she could fit her pinky finger through it.

"It's hard but I love it..."

She could. Next she tried her ring finger.

"We're in kind of a rush, Al—talk to you later?" Julie looked up, ready to go.

"Sure. You have to write more," said Alice with a slightly sly smile. "I don't even know how you worked out your boy trouble from last year."

"Ah—I have a boyfriend," said Lily, and then when Alice's eyes widened, "not—no." She was throwing Julie sidelong glances, trying to keep her out of the conversation.

"All right, well, you write me," said Alice firmly.

"I will," said Lily, "promise."

Alice gave her another hug before she left.

"Funny to think of Alice Montague actually making it through the Auror program," said Julie.

"Why funny? She's smart," Lily replied absentmindedly, still watching the honey blond head move away.

Julie shrugged. "She's got a reputation." she said flatly.

This was true. Alice, at Hogwarts, had been a combination of charming, trouble-making, and incredibly clumsy. High points in her school career included a post-Quidditch, firewhiskey-induced striptease, a completely accidental fall down three flights of stairs, and a twentieth-century Hogwarts record for number of detentions (overturned two years later by Sirius Black, and six months after that by James Potter, but impressive nonetheless.)

Lily just laughed. "You've got a reputation too," she pointed out. "So's Marlene. I don't know about me—"

"You?" Julie snorted. "You're perfect. Everyone likes you."

"Well, that's my reputation," said Lily, with just a touch of gloom.

* * *

><p>And so Julie went on, putting one foot in front of the other—neither difficult nor enjoyable, like breathing. She kept living. She didn't try to placate or repress her grief, or her frustration, or her burning, boiling fury—she just let them move inside of her, like snakes, coiling their way through a glass terrarium. Red, green, golden snakes, listless and inert behind her glass face. Ready to strike whenever they fancied.<p>

They took the Underground to King's Cross Station, and one at a time they walked through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. It was mid-morning on a cold January day, and the sun glittered through the glass ceiling.


	12. Vis Viva

**XII. Vis Viva**

"Do you mind if we sit here?"

"Uh," said Julie.

Lily rolled her eyes and opened the compartment door.

Marlene was inside, and the reason for Julie's hesitation. She was frowning at her long, pastel colored fingernails. Mary sat beyond her, quietly reading a book.

"Lily!" Marlene squealed, abandoning her self-scrutiny to jump up and throw her arms around her friend. "How are you? How's..."

Her voice trailed off. She was several inches taller than Lily, tall enough to look over her head at Julie. _Fuck_, Julie thought.

_Lily's written her and told her everything._

"Excuse me," she said primly, and she swept past Marlene to the window seat. Mary edged away from her a little bit, but when she met Julie's eye she smiled.

Mary, at least, didn't talk very much, so Julie didn't mind her. She was sincere, and she didn't gossip.

The train jerked into motion, accompanied by the shouts of parents on the platform, calling out to their children.

"How was your family?" Lily asked.

Mary shrugged. "All right."

"Yeah?"

Smiling, a little uncomfortably, Mary slipped a piece of paper into her book and closed it. "My mother wants a divorce."

"Oh," said Lily. "Well, that's good, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but she's not going to do anything about it...obviously my gram will disown my dad if he gets divorced, because she's Catholic...and a nutter...so."

"Oh."

"Next Christmas I'll spend here. And then I'm moving to London, so I only have to see them one more summer."

"So that's good then..."

The conversation trailed off, and Marlene took it as a cue. "You won't believe what happened to me in Venice."

"Let me guess," said Julie dispassionately. "You fell in love, and it was like nothing you've ever experienced before."

Marlene pouted. "You don't have to be so..._anyway_, I met the cutest boy I have _ever_ seen, oh my God..."

The compartment door slid open. Mary put her book away, sighed, and leaned her head back. She wouldn't get any reading done now.

James looked almost nervous as he stuck his head inside, and the expression was very unfamiliar on his face. His eyes landed on Julie, and he half smiled. _And he knows too. His father must have told him..._

"There's space to sit down," Marlene said cheerily. Lily was shaking her head frantically, but James slid the door open all the way and sat down across from Julie, right next to Lily. She slumped against the window. Sirius followed him, then Remus, and lastly Peter, who had to squish himself next to Marlene, to the discomfort of both.

Sirius sat down next to James, quite far from Julie, but his eyes were on hers. Something squirmed around in her stomach, like a creature chasing its own tail. So that was still happening.

Purely from an anthropological point of view, this was interesting. She had sort of expected to stop caring.

It was quiet. Mary was looking out the window, Lily and James were both gazing fixedly at Julie to avoid looking at each other, Remus was apparently sleeping. Marlene was looking at her nails again.

Peter, of all people, broke the silence. "So, anything good happen over break?"

Lily made a warning noise, but too late. Julie stood abruptly and walked out, weaving between the trunks and owl cages on the floor.

"Oh, shit," said Lily softly. Sirius half stood, as if to go after her, and James pulled him back down.

"Leave her alone," he muttered. Sirius looked at him, skeptical for a moment, and then shrugged, conceding the point.

"Shall we talk about something else?" said Marlene tartly. "Quidditch, perhaps?"

"Oh, my god, McKinnon—did you listen to the Wasps' last game?"

And in five minutes, Marlene, James and Sirius were involved in a loud, mostly good-natured argument about the prospects of the Wasps and the Arrows.

"Unbelievable," Lily mumbled. Only James heard her, and he smiled, without looking at her.

_Unbelievable_, she thought again.

* * *

><p>The weather changed as they moved north, and by the time the train stopped at Hogsmeade station, it was dismally, steadily raining. Nobody saw what carriage Julie got into, or if she was with anyone, but when the other sixth years got to the castle, hair flattened to their heads, water dripping off their chins and ears, she was sitting on the side of the steps up to the door, smoking. The stream of students going up and inside parted around her.<p>

"Up, Scottie," James said upon reaching her. The other Gryffindors were behind him. She narrowed her eyes at him before giving him her hand. He hoisted her up and she dropped her cigarette on the ground. The rain put it out before she stubbed it out with her boot. She must have been using an _Impervius_ charm to light it in the first place; James had to admire her commitment.

"Great, can we keep moving, please?" said Marlene.

Julie turned and went in.

Dripping students were milling around in the Great Hall, waiting for dinner. They gathered in small clusters, exchanging news, some of them trying out charms to dry each other's robes. James and Marlene were still talking about Quidditch; now they had moved on to their own team.

"Really, we don't have a lot of time until the Ravenclaw match, but I'm not really bothered," James was saying. "They've got terrible Beaters this season—the Slytherin match was just embarrassing."

"Not for Slytherin it wasn't," Marlene said grimly. "Pyncheon is a crack Keeper, and I'm not sure we're up to it, honestly..."

James shrugged, unconcerned. He, Marlene, and Julie, the three Chasers, made a good team: strong players, focused, and intimidating. And then he looked over at Julie, who had her head turned away, a vacant expression on her face, fingers fidgeting at her sides, and he felt a sinking sensation in his stomach.

_She'll be all right once we start training again,_ he tried to reassure himself.

* * *

><p>Julie wasn't lost in thought. She was listening to two conversations at once: one in front of her, between James and Marlene, and one behind her, between a group of Slytherins.<p>

"Christmas was fun, I stayed with Aurelia," said a sharp-voiced girl. She had a sharp face to go along with it, and Julie conjured it up in her mind's eye: Annabelle Fawley, a skinny, untalented girl, a born follower.

"It was dull," said Aurelia Malfoy, in response to the same question. "But we're closer to getting out of this place, anyway."

"Did you get that Ministry pamphlet?" snickered Avery, instantly recognizable by his nasal voice. "_Safety Measures for Muggles and Muggleborns?_"

Aurelia made a soft scoffing noise.

"Place any protective charms on your neighbors' houses lately?" Avery went on.

"I don't live within fifty miles of a Muggleborn," Aurelia said coolly.

Avery started to say something—maybe an apology, since his joke had been so poorly received—but he was cut off. "It's disgusting," said Mulciber. "They can't protect themselves, so we should take care of them? If they're to weak to stay alive, they deserve to die."

The feeling was not unlike taking a shot: Julie felt poisonously nauseous and infinitely powerful at the same time. Her ears were ringing.

She spun on her heel, elbowed Annabelle Fawley in the ribcage, and launched herself at Mulciber.

Everything was happening so fast—she had only the vaguest sense of her audience, the ripple of heads turning, the packed hall becoming an arena—she was on the ground, she had him pinned down, knees on his gut, and she grabbed his shoulders and _slammed_ his head into the stone floor.

_Slam. Slam. Slam._

She spoke in time with the blows, a word for every crack of his skull: "Say. That. Again. You. Son. Of. A bitch."

She waited, held her breath, giving him a chance to speak, and behind her hundreds of students held their breath as well.

"Wh-what?" he said feebly.

She punched him in the face, and the entire room heard his nose break.

A girl screamed.

"All right, enough," said a boy behind her. She was distracted, watching Mulciber's eyes flutter and roll back in his head, and when someone grabbed her by the elbows and pulled her upright she was surprised, and struggled.

"That's _enough_, Julia, stop!" the someone shouted. Around her there was a flurry of movement. People were drawing their wands, the Gryffindors trying to cover her back. Somebody screamed again: Siobhan.

Julie tried to wiggle her elbows, and then she tried to step on the toes of her captor, but it was only when she slammed her head backwards into his face and heard glass crunch that she realized who was holding her. It was James. He swore, loudly, and put her in a headlock.

"What is going on?"

A furious voice cut through the chaos. Julie looked up and finally stopped fighting: Professor McGonagall had opened the doors of the Great Hall. Her lips were white, her nostrils flared; Julie had never seen her so angry.

At once, students broke out in excited explanation, many of them with no idea what had happened. But there was Mulciber, bleeding on the floor, and James holding Julie back; it didn't take a genius to figure it out.

"Thank you," Professor McGonagall said crisply. "Avery, Potts, Moran, take Mr. Mulciber to the Hospital Wing." She waved her wand, and a stretcher appeared. Another wave, and Mulciber rose gently into the air, landing on the stretcher.

"And you," she continued, turning to Julie, who stared at her defiantly, "you come with me. Yes, Mr. Potter, you may accompany her if you wish."

Slowly and uncertainly, James let go of Julie. She stood very still, as if to prove that she wasn't going to cause any more trouble, but her eyes, when she looked at him, were narrowed with contempt. Straight-backed, she followed Professor McGonagall.

* * *

><p>The path to the headmaster's office was familiar to James. He had been there only once before, but the occasion was a memorable one: early in fifth year, when he had saved Snape's life. It was his worst memory, that or the month afterwards, when he had refused to speak to Sirius...and Sirius had almost been expelled...he had gone home for Christmas, and his mother had not been able to understand why Sirius had stayed at Hogwarts...<p>

What a terrible year fifth year had been. One bad thing after another.

"Fizzing Whizzbee," said McGonagall, and the gargoyle in front of them jumped aside, revealing a smoothly ascending spiral staircase. "You can wait here if you wish, Mr. Potter.

James tried to say something polite, but found that he could only make a small gulping noise. Julie shot him a look of deepest scorn; but his glasses had fallen from his face after she smashed them and he had no idea where they were, so he didn't really get the full effect. She stepped onto the staircase in front of the professor and the gargoyle moved back into place.

James' face was stinging just below one eye, where his broken glasses had cut him. His nose hurt from the blow as well—but nothing like Mulciber's, that sickening snap of bone, the blood from his nostrils, blood at his temple—

Acid rose up in his throat, and he leaned heavily against the wall, then sank down to the floor. He felt sick. He was going to throw up. He tried putting his head between his knees, but it was awkward in his still-damp robes, so he rested his head against the wall, and closed his eyes. He felt very vulnerable without his glasses.

When he opened his eyes, there was a blurry figure at the end of the corridor. It was only by her extraordinarily bright hair that he could recognize her at all.

"James," she said, and then stopped.

For a second, he couldn't breathe. The memory of that other time—the last time she had called him _James_—physically hit him: his throat constricted, and his stomach jolted.

She was coming down the hallway now. She was standing in front of him now.

"Sorry," she said, for no reason he could see. (Not that he could see much.) "I just...I found your glasses."

She had fixed them. They were fixed. He reached up and took them, and settled them on his ears, and her face sprung into focus. She was chewing on her bottom lip. He could not think of anything to say; his mind had gone completely blank.

"You're waiting for Julie, right?"

"Yeah."

"Can I wait with you?"

"If you want."

She sat on the floor next to him, with about a foot of space between them. There was a pause.

"You, um—you have blood on your face," she said hesitantly. "No, not—here." She reached out and gently rubbed her thumb under his eye. Her hand was cool. "Maybe you should put some ice on that."

"Right."

And then she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall, just as he had. She didn't look well herself; her face was pale, with purple shadows under her eyes. It seemed pointless to ask if she was all right; she wasn't, and neither was he.

He was trying to keep from thinking about her, but there was only one other place his mind would go. Crack, crack, crack, skull to stone and Julie's pale flat eyes. He shivered.

Lily must have opened her eyes without him noticing, because she very lightly touched his hand with the back of her fingers, as if to reassure him.

"How are things with your boyfriend?" he asked. His voice was low and even and very polite.

"What boyfriend?"

He laughed incredulously. "What boyfriend? Nigel Fontaine, isn't that his name? Seventh year, Ravenclaw?"

"Right, yeah, I know," said Lily quickly, blushing. "Nigel, yeah. He's fine—he's, er, not really my boyfriend. I mean, we've been on a few dates."

"What boyfriend," James repeated. "Even for you, Evans, that's cold."

She stiffened. "It's really none of your business," she said, very coldly indeed.

"Well, sorry for asking. I was just making conversation, you know."

"You probably shouldn't try."

"Right."

"It's not really one of your talents."

"And what exactly are my talents?"

She rolled her eyes extravagantly.

And they sat in silence.

* * *

><p>Julie felt calm, and empty. Not happy, really, but it was a sweet feeling, like slipping something cool under her tongue. Relief.<p>

Professor McGonagall, clearly, felt a great deal worse. Her face was white, and her lips as thin as Julie had ever seen them. The spiral staircase led them to a door, and McGonagall knocked sharply.

"Enter."

She pulled open the door and gestured Julie inside.

The headmaster's office was a large, beautiful room. It was circular—they must have climbed into a tower. And it was full of sound; the rain, spattering against the dark windows, whirs and puffs coming from various small contraptions, set up on little tables around the room, and the rustle of pages. Professor Dumbledore was sitting at an enormous, claw-footed desk in the center of the room, reading a book as big as an atlas.

And a soft cluck, the sound of a bird. Julie turned and looked over her shoulder. There was a bird, an enormous scarlet bird, with tail feathers as long as her arm and as bright as molten gold, perched beside the door. It looked at her with shining black eyes and clicked its beak.

Professor McGonagall swept past her to the headmaster's desk, bending to speak in Professor Dumbledore's ear, too quiet for Julie to hear.

"I see," he said softly. "And the boy?"

"Hospital Wing."

"I'll see him after. Please take a seat, Miss Fraser."

Julie pulled out the indicated chair and settled herself in it, uneasy under Professor McGonagall's gaze.

Dumbledore placed a blue ribbon in his book, closed it carefully, and moved it to the side. Then he folded his hands on the table in front of him. "Well, Miss Fraser. Is there anything you would like to say for yourself?"

"I like your bird," said Julie. "Professor."

"Thank you, I like him too. Professor McGonagall says you attacked a student."

"I did," said Julie. No point in lying.

Dumbledore studied her with a serious expression on his face. "Is there a reason why you would do that? Were you provoked in some way?"

Julie shrugged. "You know Mulciber as well as I do...or perhaps not. Take my word for it—he's a very provoking person."

Professor Dumbledore just looked at her with his clear blue eyes. "All right, Miss Fraser. You should know that an assault on another student is grounds for expulsion. And your disciplinary record is not exactly sterling. However, Professor McGonagall has recommended that, taking into account your academic record, which is very impressive indeed—allow me to congratulate me on your Ancient Runes O.W.L. by the way—that you should be allowed to stay, and be placed on academic probation."

Julie raised her eyebrows. She couldn't find it in her to care in the slightest. She had a great deal of experience with teachers' and head teachers' offices—she had been in the office of the head teacher at Beauly Primary School at least a dozen times, for such petty misdemeanors as hitting people with her fists, with her books, tripping other students, throwing her lunch at other students, etc, etc. Ad nauseum, sometimes her own nausea, more often someone else's. And this was her usual tactic—sit in their chairs and smile in their faces, like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

Julie wasn't someone who spent a great deal of time thinking about her future.

"This is no small punishment, Miss Fraser. You will remain on probation for the rest of the term. And you will meet with Professor McGonagall weekly for a detention, for the rest of the term. Does that sound all right?"

"You're not gonna make me apologise to Mulciber, are you?"

"I think you'd better stay far away from him," Professor McGonagall interrupted sharply.

Dumbledore sighed. "I find that compulsory apologies rarely achieve what they are supposed to. If you find yourself in a generous mood, by all means."

Julie raised her eyebrows.

"Come to my office tomorrow at seven," said Professor McGonagall.

"Yes, Professor."

"Perhaps you had better not go down to the Great Hall for dinner. I can get you something—"

"That's all right, Professor, I'm not really hungry."

"Really? Then I suppose you may go." Professor McGonagall stepped aside to let her pass.

The bird looked at her again as she left. It had liquid black eyes, and she imagined it could read her mind.

* * *

><p>James was sitting on the floor at the bottom of the staircase. He looked up when she stepped into the hallway—so she hadn't broken his glasses after all—and a number of emotions passed over his face, none of them easy to read. Lily was there too, although they weren't talking to each other; they both scrambled to their feet.<p>

"What'd they say?" said Lily, but James just watched her, fixed his eyes on her face.

"Detention for the rest of the term," Julie said.

"Not so bad," said Lily with a shrug, and James looked at her.

"You two can go down to dinner now," said Julie.

"I'll walk you to the Common Room," Lily said. "You do realize that every Slytherin is out for your blood?"

Julie snorted. "I think I can handle it."

"I'm sure you can," said James quietly.

It wasn't a long way to Gryffindor Tower. Lily walked at her side and James a few steps behind. Julie imagined that having bodyguards felt like this.

The Fat Lady watched her apprehensively as the little group approached. "So, they didn't kick you out?" she said.

"Nightingale," said Julie, and the portrait swung open. Swearing at paintings, she knew from experience, wasn't very rewarding.

And the day's exertions were beginning to catch up to her. She was bone-weary.

"For fuck's sake, Potter, why're you looking at me like that?" she snapped.

He inhaled. "Jesus. What you just did? In the Entrance Hall?"

She was staring at him, as if she had no idea why he was upset.

"That was the scariest thing I've ever seen."

"Oh." She gazed at him with something like sadness. "No offense, Jamie, but you haven't seen much." She looked from James to Lily, and then she gave them a half smile. "Cheers," she said, and she turned and went up the girls' stairs.

* * *

><p>"Jamie?" Lily repeated. "You don't seem like a Jamie to me."<p>

"Yeah," said James. "I dunno, she's Scottish." He frowned at the staircase. "You hungry? I'm going off to steal something from the kitchens."

"No," said Lily. "Thanks."

He turned his head suddenly and met her eyes. "Well. A lonely life of crime for me. See you round, Evans."

"Yeah," she said. "Bye."

He jumped out the portrait hole and was gone.

The room was very still. She turned aimlessly on the spot for a second.

_Even for you, Evans, that's cold._

"Oh, fuck off," she muttered. She rubbed the heel of her hand into her forehead for a second. _ What am I doing?_ she thought. Being friends with Julie would only make her life messier. She did not like feeling taken advantage of, as she invariably did when she was kind to someone who would never be kind in return. Last year, Julie had spent most of her time alone or with Niamh; she had not been close with Lily. And Marlene, who was Lily's best friend—who had been so good to her after the Snape fiasco—couldn't stand Julie, had no patience with her. And the feeling was entirely mutual. Julie made enemies the way Potter played Quidditch—gleefully, easily, and often.

And that was bothering her too. James, who really did like Julie, and knew her well, and seemed to know a bit more about the whole situation. James who was looking out for Julie, trying to keep her safe, just the way Lily was. The more time she spent with Julie, the more time she would spend with James. And it wasn't as if she couldn't talk to him—_please, we're adults, we can manage_—but she just didn't _want_ to talk to him. They had a little too much history, she thought, to ever really be comfortable together. She couldn't talk to him without remembering screaming at him on the train last spring, crying afterwards, entirely alone, realizing, as she watched him dangle her best friend upside down, how purely she hated him. Laughing at him, and with him, joking around in third or fourth year. That one brief moment in fifth year that she would so love to entirely forget.

But she was still going to help Julie. She knew she would. Perhaps it was her voice on the phone, when she said _My mother is dead._ How hollow, how empty. How very lost. When Lily's mother had died, she had cried and cried and cried, and if she had not had her father, Marlene, even Mary, to hold her and let her know that she would survive, she might never have stopped crying.

She had never seen Julie cry. She had a vague feeling that there was something terribly wrong with a person who could not cry—but maybe she just did it in private.

And she liked Julie, she did, in some way. Julie did all the things that normal people just fantasized about, like slamming a boy into a stone floor, or swearing at grown-ups, or having sex in an empty classroom. It was the reason so many people were afraid of her. It was what made her so attractive.

Lily took a deep breath, gathering her resolve. It had been a very long day, and there was one more thing she would like to get done. She hopped awkwardly out of the portrait hole and set off.

The whole castle was empty, and she realized that everyone else must still be at dinner. Maybe she should wait—but when she got to the Transfiguration office, Professor McGonagall opened the door at her first knock.

"Miss Evans, how are you?"

"Good, thanks, how are you, Professor?"

She smiled in a way that very expressively said not great.

"I just wanted to ask you about Julie."

"I'm sure you won't be the last," said Professor McGonagall, walking over to her desk. There was an enormous stack of parchment in the center which she began to sort through—papers, probably, that she had to hand back to her various classes. There was a T scribbled on the top one, and Lily winced in sympathy.

"I know—I mean, I know this is a lot to ask, but I just wanted to ask you—to be kind to her, I suppose?"

"What?" said Professor McGonagall sharply.

"I know that sounds ridiculous! I saw what she did! But it's just..." She felt almost guilty for saying this, but it wouldn't be a secret for long. "Her mother died. Her mother died last week, and I know she's not one to make it obvious, but she is really upset."

McGonagall blinked, and sat down. "I'm quite aware of the circumstances of Margaret's death, Miss Evans. More aware than you, I would imagine..."

Lily did not take her eyes off the professor's face. There was a long pause.

"You realize that we've given her the lightest punishment we could?" McGonagall said finally. "I have to write Mulciber's parents tonight, and they're not going to be happy. Probation is the least I could give her."

"Wait, she's on probation?"

"Yes," said McGonagall, looking at her over her square-rimmed glasses.

"Oh...she said she had detention."

"Yes, that too." McGonagall sighed. "I'm not going to have her cleaning bedpans, Miss Evans. Your concern does you a great deal of credit, but I have an extremely tedious letter to write on top of lesson plans to go over."

"Right." Lily nodded. "Thank you, Professor."

"Good night, Miss Evans."

* * *

><p>Julie had breakfast early, as usual, and so there weren't many other students around to stare at her. When she came into Potions, however, everyone in the room swiveled in their seats to stare at her with varying degrees of hostility. Lily anxiously patted the seat next to her.<p>

As she sat, all the heads turned at the same time.

"I'm not interrupting, am I, Professor?" she asked humorlessly.

"No," said Professor Slughorn, "no, not at all. Let's get started, shall we? I've got something rather difficult for today!"

He looked like he had indigestion as he turned to the blackboard and tapped it with his wand. A long list of ingredients appeared. Only when the dungeon was filled with pungent steam, and Lily's Sharpening Solution was the ideal shade of buttery orange, did she lean over. "You okay?" she whispered.

"Yeah," said Julie, looking at her deskmate as if she'd just asked something ridiculous. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Lily raised her eyebrows and went back to work.

Mondays were always a busy day, and Julie didn't have to talk much to anyone. Besides, most people seemed to be avoiding her. Marlene looked at her feet whenever she crossed Julie's path. James treated her as if she was made of glass. Mary looked at her with open distaste, and she couldn't get near Sirius at all.

Mulciber was still in the hospital wing.

She ate dinner in a rush, knowing she wouldn't have much time for homework, and then spent a little time in the library before heading down three flights of stairs to the Transfiguration Corridor. Midway through the second staircase, she was held up.

"I thought I would see you around," she said, and the right corner of her mouth came up in a smile.

"You psycho _bitch_," hissed Siobhan Fairchild. She had come out onto the landing, and Julie, half a dozen steps above her, had the advantage of height. She used it theatrically, descending very slowly step by step until she stood right in front of Siobhan. Julie was still four or five inches taller.

"You _attacked_ my boyfriend. You can't get away with this."

"Oh, dear, I haven't!" said Julie lightly. "I have a detention right now, you know."

Siobhan grabbed her by the collar. "That's right, do whatever you want. You're lucky McGonagall plays favorites. Things might get a little harder once you're out in the real world. You're going to have to face some consequences sooner or later."

"Is that right?" said Julie. Siobhan was pulling her down a little bit, so Julie could smile right in her face. Then she took hold of the other girl's hand and wrenched her finger so far back that Siobhan gasped in pain, letting go of Julie's robes.

"Don't bother trying to threaten me," said Julie quietly. "I'm not wasting my time on your two-bit schoolgirl gang."

"You don't know what you're talking about," said Siobhan. "You're over your head, Fraser."

"And you're asking for a broken finger, Fairchild. Get out of my way."

They held each other's gaze for a long moment. Then Siobhan snorted contemptuously, tossed her head, and walked upstairs, making sure to knock Julie with her shoulder as she passed.

Julie was smiling as she knocked on Professor McGonagall's door.

* * *

><p>By midnight, the Common Room had emptied out, and only two boys were left. James had his quill poised over a scroll of parchment, trying to finish his History of Magic essay, assigned before break. He couldn't stop glancing up at the portrait hole every time the fire crackled or a gust of wind hit the window. Julie hadn't come back yet.<p>

Sirius was turned towards the fire, away from the portrait hole, flipping nonchalantly through a Quidditch magazine. Occasionally he would point something out to James—a new racing broom, or a particularly interesting statistic from a player's interview—but James responded only in monosyllables.

"It's twelve thirty," James announced tightly.

Sirius tossed his magazine down. "You don't have to stay up, you know."

"God knows she's not making it easy for me," James said. "And we've got practice tomorrow...she had better not forget. I'll make allowances to a point..."

Sirius finished the sentence. "...but God forbid she miss a single goddamn practice, in January, when nobody gives a shit, and all we do is stand on the field and freeze off our balls."

James stood, stretched, yawned hugely and ruffled up his hair. "Yeah, I'm knackered. You coming to bed?"

Sirius reached his toes towards the fire, making himself comfortable. He leaned back and closed his eyes. "Nah, you go on. I'm gonna wait for Julie."


	13. Defense and Offense

**XIII. Defense and Offense**

The next day dawned, and it looked just like the last. A glittering crust of snow covered the ground. Julie stood at the window of her dormitory and looked out over towards the forest. Smoke was rising from the chimney of the groundskeeper's hut, and the Whomping Willow swayed gently. But something had changed, and what made Julie so extraordinarily happy was that nobody knew. How nice to have something—anything—between herself and another, with no third person, no observer, no one else to approve or disapprove.

The feeling was short-lived. Somehow, by lunchtime that day there was not one person in the castle who did not know that something, of some nature, had transpired between Julie Fraser and Sirius Black. Both of them had were accompanied by whispers and stares wherever they went. Julie knew this was unavoidable, in her case at least—if they were not talking about Sirius they would be talking about Mulciber. It didn't bother her. She half liked it.

James was in a terrible mood all day—frustrated with his best friend and practically furious with Julie. Every time he tried to talk to her she would give him a gracious, vacant smile before assuring him that it was none of his business. Sirius said the same, but he was less irritating about it, and wasn't so obviously enjoying himself.

Lily was a little bemused, and a little disgusted. She didn't think very much of Sirius. Marlene, who thought even less of Julie, was completely shocked. Only Mary had seen it coming, but she was still disappointed. She hadn't really thought that Julie had better taste, but she had hoped.

Niamh would have seen it coming, if she had been paying attention, but she had other things going on. Over the holidays, she had gone to the little pharmacy near her house, and bought herself a bitter, dark-orange nail varnish, to keep herself from chewing on her nails. It hadn't worked yet, and now she had dreams of drinking poison, of eating stones, of breathing fire.

Peter, who was scared of Julie, just hoped he could stay out of her way.

Remus had no opinion on the matter.

The funny thing was that Sirius and Julie didn't act like a couple at all. They talked across the table at lunch and at dinner, with James, Peter, Remus and Marlene. They came into the Transfiguration classroom at the same time, and she didn't thank him for holding the door. They didn't change seats in any of their classes, they didn't smile at each other across the room, and they certainly weren't seen kissing in the corridors. It was a mystery how anyone had figured it out at all.

It went on for days. Nothing was more exciting than Julie Fraser trying to kill Caius Mulciber and then hooking up with Sirius Black in quick succession; nobody would talk about anything else. Julie started sitting on the floor in the back of the library to do her studying. She couldn't concentrate on her work with so many eyes burning holes in her head. Part envy, part fear, the stares wore her out eventually.

Professor Abbott gave them something else to think about when he announced that they were beginning the practical portion of his course. It was the second week of the term. Mulciber was still in the Hospital Wing, and rumors about his health were flying. _He's in a coma. He's being transferred to St. Mungo's. He's getting cosmetic Transfiguration for his nose. He's just afraid to come back._

So when Professor Abbott asked his students to stand up and find a partner, there was a little awkward scrambling and adjusting. Lily ended up with Marlene and then immediately realized she should be with Julie. James and Sirius picked each other, as usual, and Professor Abbott was inexperienced enough that he did not immediately separate them, which meant that Remus and Peter had to work together. Avery, Mulciber's usual partner, asked Aurelia Malfoy to be partners, and she laughed at him. Finally, everyone was standing in pairs by their desks, except for Mary, Julie, and a tall Slytherin girl named Priya Shah.

Priya smiled and brushed her long hair over one shoulder. "Wanna work with me?" she said as she crossed the room to Mary, boots clicking on the floor with every long stride.

"Sure," said Mary awkwardly. Julie looked at her, incredulous.

"Well," said Professor Abbott, "Now we've all got partners, and now we can begin. Miss Fraser, I hope you'll help me demonstrate."

They had spent the entire first term taking notes on Professor Abbott's lectures. He had been a very unremarkable teacher—boring, in fact.

"Right," he began. "So. Before Christmas, you'll remember—at least I hope you'll remember—we were discussing shield spells. By now, you should all understand the theory of a non-verbal Shield Charm, so this is your opportunity to try it out in practice. One of you will attempt to jinx the other, and the other will defend his or herself—without speaking, please. Don't hurt each other. All right. Miss Fraser and I will demonstrate."

Julie turned to face him and raised her wand. Professor Abbott looked nervous and uncomfortable, just as he always did. He was hesitating, bouncing on his feet a little bit.

"Whenever you're ready, Professor," said Julie drily, and he pointed his wand and shot out a jet of silver light. Julie, unprepared, was startled into swiping her wand through the air, and with a ripple of force the silver jet was reflected back to the wall, and Professor Abbott was knocked to the floor.

There was a collective gasp. Julie's face was blank. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, and she could feel the tips of her fingers tingling.

James half rose from his seat, uncertain, but before he could speak Professor Abbott had struggled back to his feet.

"Right..." he said feebly, "well, you get the idea. Perhaps a little less force. Clear the desks away and begin."

And Julie stood back, and watched the class.

* * *

><p>"Wow," said Priya. Mary looked up sharply at her partner, but she could detect no sarcasm in her voice—and she was impressed as well. "Is she a friend of yours?"<p>

Mary shrugged. "Sort of."

She really wasn't, but she felt compelled to defend Julie anyway. They were in the same house, after all, even if Julie was completely losing it. At least Abbott wasn't going to get her in trouble—he believed that it had been an accident.

Mary believed that as well. It was just that Julie wouldn't even look apologetic, wouldn't excuse herself at all. Mary threw her an anxious glance and she, leaning against the blackboard, raised her eyebrows in response.

"Should I go first?" asked Priya.

"Yeah, sure."

They backed away a few feet, and Priya lifted her wand. Her spell was just a Jelly-Legs Jinx, and Mary blocked it, biting her lip to keep from saying the incantation out loud. The spell rebounded and hit a desk with a small pop.

"You're good at this," said Priya, smiling. Mary returned the smile, feeling very glad, and not for the first time, that her skin was too dark to show much of a blush.

Priya deflected her Stunning Spell as well, although Mary heard her mutter the incantation. Jinxes were flying all around the room, reflecting back and forth, occasionally hitting the wrong person entirely, and after they had each made an attempt, the two girls drew together and watched the chaos. Mary looked up at her, out of the corner of her eye. She had never really spoken to Priya before—she didn't, generally, speak to Slytherins. Priya had long wavy hair, very black and a little wild, and dark eyes. There was a tiny scar on her left cheekbone.

"Sh'we do it again?" Mary asked.

"If you like. Nobody's paying attention to us."

Mary stepped back and raised her wand.

You can't always see a change as it comes. Later, she would look back and try to pinpoint the moment—the second when potential became irrevocable. She never could.

You can't always cross a Rubicon. Sometimes the Rubicon crosses you.

* * *

><p>"If you are seventeen years of age, or will turn seventeen on or before the thirty-first of August next, you are eligible for a twelve-week course of Apparition Lessons from a Ministry of Magic Apparition instructor. Please sign below if you would like to participate. Cost twelve Galleons."<p>

"Excellent," said Marlene. "Pass me a quill."

Lily, who had just finished reading the notice out loud, gave her friend a quill without looking at her. She was frowning at the paper, just discovered on the Gryffindor notice board.

"Twelve Galleons?" she repeated. "That's sort of a lot."

Marlene signed her name in a flourishing cursive. "You don't have to worry about it." Lily looked at her uncomfortably. "You don't, really. It can be a loan if you want. You have to learn how to Apparate."

Lily made a small, vague gesture.

"Niamh, are you signing up?" Marlene called across the room. Niamh was reading a magazine in an armchair, and she looked up with her eyes wide.

She jumped up and scurried over to the notice board. "Signing up for what? Oh. Yeah, sure." She took Lily's quill from Marlene and carefully wrote her name.

Then everyone started paying attention, and Lily had to stand by awkwardly while most of the sixth years used her quill without realizing. James and Sirius came up last. James wrote very quickly without looking at her. After he handed off the pen, he went straight up the boys' staircase. He didn't say anything to Sirius.

When Sirius finished writing his name, he looked down at the feather in his hand, uncertain. "That's my pen," said Lily, more sharply than she had intended.

He gave her the quill, and an unpleasant, mocking smile. There was nothing she hated more than feeling as if someone was trying to intimidate her; she shifted her weight into the balls of her feet and raised her chin.

He didn't say anything else; he turned and walked away. He did not follow James: he went out into the corridor, even though it was almost too late to be out, and the Fat Lady's portrait slammed against the wall behind him.

Lily went over to Marlene, who had found a table and sat down, and started to unpack her books. A few minutes later she saw Julie cross the room and go out through the portrait hole as well.

* * *

><p>Apparition lessons began that Friday in the Great Hall. James, making his way through the crush of students on the front staircase, passed Lily, talking to Nigel, and turned around to grin at her. He had the satisfaction of seeing her roll her eyes—actually, he wasn't sure if that was satisfying anymore—before he went through the doors.<p>

The house tables were gone, and in their place were four rows of wooden hoops. Most of the sixth years were milling around the edges of the room, unsure. It took James a moment to find Peter and Remus and make his way over to them.

Remus nodded in greeting, but Peter was chewing on his lip, forehead wrinkled with worry.

"Prongs," he said quietly, "you've done this before, right? Side-Along?"

"Sure," said James.

"So, is it...is it..."

"Is it what? Fun? Interesting? Exciting? No." He wasn't in the mood for talking to Peter; he was scanning the crowd for Sirius, and he couldn't find him. He didn't bother to look for Julie; he wasn't _trying_ to make himself angry.

"But it doesn't—it doesn't _hurt_, does it?" Peter managed to say.

"It feels like shit, Petey," said James carelessly. "It's probably the most painful thing I've ever done. Just try not to pass out, yeah?"

"Prongs," Remus muttered under his breath. Peter blanched. James looked at Remus in a _what did I do?_ sort of way, and then snapped his head back to the doors as Julie walked in. Her hair was loose and a little mussed, and she ran her hand through it as she came in. She looked around, smiled a little wickedly at James, and walked over to Niamh Fairchild, who had a skeptical sort of look on her face.

"Just ignore her..." said Remus quietly, but when James turned to look at him he went silent.

The doors opened again and Professor McGonagall came in, accompanied by a curly-haired blonde woman in powder blue robes.

"That's the instructor?" said Remus, surprised. Neither James nor Peter bothered to respond.

As the two women walked to the front of the room, Sirius came in. James took off at once, leaving the other two boys to their own devices.

"Hello, everyone," said the blonde woman, with a bright, uncomfortable smile. "My name is Victoria Harkness, and I'm going to be teaching you Apparition for the next twelve weeks. I'm so pleased to see you all..."

James was shoving his way through the crowd of students, but everyone else was moving the other way, towards the Ministry woman. When he got to the back of the room, Sirius had gone.

The door cracked open, and Lily Evans slipped in. When she saw him, she immediately blushed.

"Line up by House," Professor McGonagall was loudly calling, and the students were moving into four scraggly lines. "Stand five feet behind the person in front of you."

James shifted into position behind Mary Macdonald.

"Now, I'm sure many of you find the prospect of Apparition intimidating," Victoria Harkness trilled. "However, there are just three very simple principles to be followed..."

"Are you upset?"

"_What_?" James hissed, spinning around.

"Sorry," said Lily, who was standing just behind him, "I just...you seemed upset. Is it about Julie?"

James just snorted.

"...Destination, Determination, and Deliberation..."

"Because I think you should leave it alone."

James turned again. "Evans. Did I ask?"

"I don't know Sirius as well as you do—I probably don't know Julie as well either—but neither of them are going to listen to you telling them what to do. Or—Julie won't, anyway," she added, as James glared at her.

"Do you realize," he said, "how stupid they're being? Julie just smashed someone's head open, should I be _glad_ she's dating my best friend? And Sirius isn't—he's just—"

He had a very clear idea of what Sirius was trying to do, but he wasn't interested in telling Lily, and he subsided incoherently.

"Right," said Lily, eyebrows raised. "If that's all you have to say about it, I don't see why you don't leave it alone. No, listen to me! If Julie is going to be a reckless idiot right now, and she is, isn't it better that she do this instead of attacking somebody else?"

"She's been doing both pretty well so far," James interrupted. "She shouldn't be getting him involved in her shit."

"_We're_ both involved," Lily pointed out. "What are you so worried about? I'm pretty sure it's just about sex, anyway."

"Oh, Evans," said James, "it's never just about—what? They've already—?"

Lily didn't actually say _Obviously_, but the look she gave him was clear enough.

James sighed. "Look, you can't just go around _snogging_ people without any emotions at all."

Lily's face changed from exasperated to confused, and finally slightly nervous.

"I don't mean they're going to fall in love with each other or anything ridiculous like that," said James, focusing his gaze on Lily's hairline, "it's just that Julie has this tendency to, um...go through boys at a furious rate? You know?"

"So you're worried she's going to hurt his feelings?" said Lily very sarcastically. "Well, you know him better than I do..."

"Evans! How can you ask me to mind my own business when you won't stay out of it yourself? I'm not talking to you about Sirius, and I'm not talking to you about Julie. Talk to her yourself. I'll walk you to the Hospital Wing afterwards."

Lily rolled her eyes extravagantly and was about to retort when Mary turned around and put her finger to her lips.

"...and turn into the air with _deliberation_!" Victoria Harkness finished, with an expectant look. The students glanced at each other with alarm and then apparently—oh god, Lily should have been paying attention—all made their first attempt. A couple people fell over. Michael Potts spun around and hit Mary with his wildly flailing arm. Lily did not move at all, and James disappeared with a pop and reappeared inside his wooden hoop.

"How did you do that?" Lily hissed at him, outraged. He had just a moment to grin at her over his shoulder before Victoria Harkness descended on him.

"That was _wonderful_! You, in the back, what's your name?"

"Potter," he said flatly. "James."

"Oh," she said, with an expression of exaggerated surprise. Lily suspected that she had heard the name before. "And have you Apparated before, Mr. Potter?"

Professor McGonagall was raising an eyebrow.

"No."

"Well, that was very impressive! Don't worry, everyone," she smiled at the rest of the room, "it's quite rare to succeed on your first try. Once more!"

And the students around them resumed their pained looks.

"How did you do that?" Lily repeated. James smiled reluctantly.

"I've done it before. With my dad."

"Pfft..."

He didn't speak again until the end of class, as the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs crowded past them. It was as Julie walked by, flipping her long hair over her shoulder. "She's using him," he said. "She's using him to make herself feel better, and Sirius has never been the type to let himself be used."

"Maybe," said Lily, "but don't you think he's using her as well?"

And this was so close to what James was thinking himself that he could not respond.

* * *

><p>On Monday, during Defense Against the Dark Arts, Mulciber came back. He came in late, when everyone was already paired up and ready to start, and gave the teacher a note.<p>

"Excellent," said Professor Abbott, reading it through with a grimace and putting it away in his desk. "We've begun dueling practice, Mr. Mulciber—perhaps you could work with Miss Fraser, she's been helping me demonstrate."

The class was silent. Lily's jaw dropped. Even Julie looked a little surprised. One side of her mouth lifted into a little smile that made Lily think of one word: Probation.

"I'll work with Mulciber."

Lily bit her lip, but it was too late. The words had already come out.

"Oh," said Professor Abbott, blinking. "Certainly, um, if that's what you...why not? Miss Fraser, you can work with Miss McKinnon."

"_Are you mad_?" Marlene hissed, grabbing at Lily's elbow, but she shook it off and walked up to Mulciber, who was narrowing his eyes at her.

"Go on," she muttered to Julie, who looked at her bewildered before going over to Marlene.

Mulciber just stared, like he didn't know what to make of her.

"Begin," said Professor Abbott. "_Non-verbal_, please!"

"You can go," said Mulciber, unsmiling. He was an average-looking sort of person, not ugly, with brown eyes and short dark hair. If Lily had walked past him on the street, she would not have spared him a second glance. But as it was, she could not look at him without thinking of last year, when she and Marlene had found him about to curse Mary Macdonald. Mary had asked her not to tell Dumbledore or McGonagall, and she had not. Now she wondered if she should have insisted, remembering the attack on Niamh a little while ago. Niamh had told Madam March that she couldn't remember what had happened to her, but Lily knew that Julie blamed Mulciber.

"Sure," she said politely. She took a few steps back and, making sure he was ready, cast a simple Jelly-Legs Jinx, whispering the incantation under her breath. Mulciber deflected it easily, and he didn't have to fake it; he was already very good at nonverbal spells.

He didn't wait to shoot a jinx back at her, and it wasn't something she recognized: a jet of blue smoke that she reflexively dodged, so that her aim was off in her Shield Charm. Mulciber's spell hit the classroom wall with a sizzle, leaving an ominous burn mark. James, Julie and Marlene all turned around to stare at her, and she realized that half the class was barely paying attention to their own practice.

"If that's how we're going to do it," she muttered, and she shot off an Impediment Jinx. This time she managed to keep herself from speaking the words by concentrating so hard that she held her breath. Mulciber deflected it again, but rather than wait for his turn, she jinxed him again, and this time he stepped back and stumbled, just managing to knock the jet of light back to her. She ducked.

He used another spell she did not know, and when she threw up a Shield Charm it popped and fizzed. Sirius and James were not even pretending to duel anymore; James was staring at Mulciber with unmitigated dislike, and Sirius was following the trajectory of their jinxes with a dark look on his face.

There were no more pauses after that, and she did not manage to look at anyone else: Mulciber was throwing hexes at her so quickly, so furiously, that it was all she could do to send a few jinxes his way between the Shield Charms she was putting up over and over. Her vision narrowed down to Mulciber's face, the tip of his wand, and the jets of colored light she deflected again and again.

Suddenly there was a very loud BANG, and Lily realized when her opponent turned to look that she had not made the noise herself. It was Peter, who had managed to explode a desk.

"All right," said Professor Abbott nervously, "Take a moment. How about we work in small groups, so we have more space?"

Lily backed against the wall, trying not to show how out of breath she was. James, Sirius, Mary, and her Slytherin partner went first, and James took so long to successfully cast a nonverbal jinx that nobody else had to take a turn for the entire class.

* * *

><p><em>4th yr Charms classroom. 9pm. <em>

There was no signature on the note Sirius found in his Potions textbook, but he knew who had put it there anyway. The handwriting was surprisingly elegant—beautiful, really—a copperplate script that was a little difficult to read. It was stuck between the recipes for Elixir for Excitement and Blood-Clotting Potion, and he wondered if that was Julie's idea of romance, or just a coincidence.

He took the Marauder's Map, but left the cloak behind, since it was kept under James' bed, and he didn't want to talk to James. The map was more than enough; he avoided Filch on the sixth floor and was just entering the Charms Corridor when he noticed something: two dots labeled _M. McGonagall_ and _A. Dumbledore_, walking upstairs from the Transfiguration corridor. He had only moments to decide which way to go, but rather than try to escape, he slipped into the nearest room and flattened himself to the wall behind the door. He followed the two professors' progress on the map until he could hear their voices approaching, coming down the corridor.

"...stand by my original point, Albus. You have a responsibility to _all_ your students, and we both know which is the bigger threat to their safety." Professor McGonagall sounded irritated and snappish; Sirius could easily imagine her thin lips and flaring nostrils.

"Forgive me, Minerva," and Dumbledore sounded as unaffected as ever, "but do we? I share your concern about Mr. Mulciber—" Sirius inhaled sharply with surprise, pressing himself closer against the wall. "—but we have only suspicion and circumstance behind us there. Miss Fraser herself could have done a great deal more to help us in that area."

"If we had anything else," said McGonagall angrily, "he would have been thrown out long ago. _Yes_, Albus, I know how you feel, but while we may be more capable of containing him here, we are still teaching him advanced magic—do you know how it feels to have that boy in my class, and the rest of his friends? What are they going to do with it? What are they going to do with the magic I'm showing them?"

Dumbledore sighed heavily. "Until we can accuse him of an actual crime, he is still our student, and he deserves an education."

"Yes, so you've told me, time and again," McGonagall responded tartly.

"And it was Julia, and not Mulciber, of whom we were speaking in the first place."

They appeared to have stopped, only a few doors down from Sirius, and although they were speaking in low voices, he could hear them quite clearly.

"I have said to you before and I'll say it again, Albus, that girl is a greater danger to herself than she is to anyone else. I know there's a limit to what you can forgive, but the incident with Abbott was genuinely an accident, not to mention the man is an incompetent fool. I'll speak to her about it myself if you want." There was a pause, and then she said, even more softly, "You know what Margaret did for us. You know Julie is going to pay for it."

After a long moment, during which Sirius hardly dared breathe, Dumbledore said, in his deep, calm voice, "Speak to her soon."

They started to move again, and soon they were gone. Sirius followed them on the map again, right past the fourth year classroom, and the little _J. Fraser_ waiting inside.

She was sitting on top of the teacher's desk, her hair loose over her shoulders. He wasn't surprised to find her with a book, and she was holding a paper bookmark in front of her mouth, absently tracing the outline of her lips with its corner as she read. She did not look up when he closed the door behind him, but she folded her bookmark into the book and set it on the desk. There was a small picture on the front, of a man wearing an Elizabethan ruff. It did not move, and he wasn't surprised; he had never seen her reading a Wizarding book for fun.

"You're late," Julie said as she slipped off the desk. "I was afraid you weren't going to come."

"No you weren't," he said calmly. She smirked at him, but before she could start he said, "I had to avoid McGonagall and Dumbledore."

"Yeah, I heard them go by. Did you hear what they were talking about?"

She wasn't very interested; she had come right up to him and was very lightly tracing the neckline of his robes with one finger. He did not think she noticed when he hesitated for a second before answering. "No."

Her hand had made it to the back of his neck. She pulled him close and went in for the kill.

* * *

><p>Later that night, Sirius was lying on his back, watching shadows collect in the heavy curtains of his four-poster bed when James pushed them aside. He was wearing pajamas, and his hair was wet. He must have just gotten out of the shower.<p>

"Budge over," James whispered hoarsely.

Sirius, under the covers, shifted over, and James sat on his side, on top of the covers, inadvertently smothering his best friend.

"You just finished practice?"

James shook his head. "I talked to Marlene for a while."

"What'd she want?" asked Sirius, yawning.

"She wanted to know what's going on with you and Julie."

"Oh," said Sirius, unsurprised. "So what did you tell her?"

James did not immediately respond. He was sitting up, looking straight ahead, and when Sirius glanced at him, he could only see his profile, the long nose and the messy hair.

"I said it was none of her business," he replied.

Sirius made a face. "Okay."

"The thing is, I don't actually know."

Sirius groaned and tried to slide deeper under the covers. "Oh God, can I please go to sleep?" He tried to push James off the bed, but he wasn't at a good angle, and it was impossible.

"So?"

"We had sex," Sirius said, grunting with effort as he shoved at his friend, "what do you want to know?"

"Just _now_?" demanded James, his voice rising.

"No, you twat. Last week."

"Wait, you mean...after her detention? In the _common room_? That's dis_gust_ing, what the hell?"

"Next time," said Sirius, stony-faced, "we'll do it in your bed."

James sighed very deeply. "Padfoot. Why are you trying to piss me off?"

"Because you're_ sitting on me_, and I can't _breathe_."

"Not right now," said James, although he did finally shift his weight a little bit, loosening the blankets over Sirius' chest. "I mean this whole thing. Julie. You're doing this to piss me off, aren't you?"

"God, you're self-centered."

James cuffed him around the back of the head. "Be serious."

Sirius glared at him. "When am I not? Oh, for Christ's sake. If I wanted to piss you off, I'd be shagging Evans."

"Low," said James. "And she wouldn't give you the time of day—she's clever that way."

"Ha ha."

James sighed again, and Sirius relaxed into the mattress, hearing the beginning of a story in the sigh. "My dad—my dad knew Julie's parents. I'm not sure how—her dad used to work for the radio in London, when my dad was still in the Auror Office, I think, so maybe they met then. He went to her mum's funeral. I asked to come, to see Julie, but he said no...now I think it's just as well, the way she's behaving. There's nothing I can say to her that will make her feel better—but I'd like to keep her alive, you know? and sane? I'm going to look out for her. And if she keeps pulling stupid tricks, like the thing with Mulciber, it makes my life harder."

"Do you think sleeping with me is a stupid trick?" Sirius politely inquired.

"I don't...I don't think it's good for her."

"Maybe you should mind your own business," said Sirius sharply.

"Maybe you should stop trying to provoke me, because it's not going to distract me from our actual problem."

"Which is?"

And a third sigh. "Do the words 'Whomping Willow' mean anything to you?"

James felt Sirius tense up beside him.

"We've done this to death, Prongs."

"Not if Mulciber knows about the passage!" James hissed. Sirius didn't at all feel like sleeping, but he closed his eyes. "What if he tries to find it? What if he finds out about _Remus_?"

"What if he pokes his eye out and calls it a day?" Sirius mumbled.

"Just try not to fuck anything else up, all right?"

There was a long pause.

"Get...off...my...bed," said Sirius slowly, and he shoved his knee sideways into James' crotch. James fell with a crash, pulling the covers down with him, but Sirius did not look over. He lay on his back, staring up at the dark red drapery, and he did not blink, did not speak or move as James got to his feet, lifted the blankets off the floor, smoothed them over his best friend, and then slipped away as quietly as he had come.


	14. The Birthday Party

**RECAP**  
>So over Christmas vacation, Julie and Amy's mum is killed. Julie gets back to school and immediately beats Mulciber up for saying something derogatory about Muggles. James and Lily separately decide to watch out for Julie: Lily's sympathetic because her own mum died in fifth year, James knows that his dad has some sort of connection to Julie's family. Mulciber, meanwhile, is investigating a secret passage that might get someone out of, or into, Hogwarts. Julie and Sirius start going out—not that they actually go on any dates—and nobody's happy about it, especially James.<p>

**XIV. The Birthday Party**

Remus, Lily and Marlene had been meeting in the library every Saturday of that winter to practice nonverbal spells, but early in March Remus fell ill, and the two girls were alone.

"I need to talk to you," was the first thing Lily said when she got to their table.

"Please, Miss Evans, _nonverbal_," said Marlene, pursing her lips in a terrible imitation of Professor McGonagall.

"No, actually. We need to talk about Nigel."

"What Nigel?" Marlene asked pertly, familiar as she was with every conversation her best friend had had with James Potter in the last year. Lily rolled her eyes.

"He asked me to Hogsmeade again."

"Well, that's sort of unimaginative, but he doesn't have many options, I suppose. Are you going?"

"Yeah, I thought I would," said Lily. "It's in a few weeks."

"You fancy him?" Marlene asked, blue eyes widening.

"I don't know," said Lily thoughtfully. "He's nice...easy to talk to..he's sort of mellow, you know? Just very calm."

"So...you don't."

"Ah, I, I mean, I could. I'd like to give him a chance. We haven't seen each other that much."

"Oh, come on," said Marlene scathingly, "that's not how it works! You can't not know if you fancy a boy or not."

Lily just looked at her.

"Anyway," Marlene went on, "I think you should go on this date, if that's what you want. But that's it, then you have to make a decision, and be honest with the bloke. Tell him you're not interested—or tell him you are, _if_ you are," she added, clearly skeptical, "but don't waste your time!"

"I'm not...uhhh..."

Marlene patted the back of Lily's head. "You're terrible at this."

"Thanks, Mar," said Lily. She dragged a textbook across the table and flipped it open. "Can we practice counter-jinxes?"

"Sure. While we're talking about your bad decisions, what are you trying to do with Mulciber?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Do you seriously think he should be practice-duelling with Julie? Do you want him to be killed?"

"Frankly, I wouldn't mind."

"Do you want Julie to be expelled?"

"Frankly, I wouldn't mind."

"Ha ha."

"No, I'm not joking. Remember when she broke my Red Caps record?"

"I fixed that."

"Yeah, but there's a skip in the chorus of 'Charmed'..."

"—which is a terrible song, so who cares."

* * *

><p>Shadows slid across the corridors and through doorways, hid behind tapestries, shivered down staircases. Remus was in the Hospital Wing that night, and in the small hours of the morning his three best friends were heading back to their rooms, going separate ways. Amy was a shadow as well, tip-toeing down to the fifth floor, making her way across the castle. An amateur, she turned every time she heard a sound, but she didn't hear Peter and Sirius, ducking behind a suit of armor.<p>

Sirius rolled his eyes, knowing that it was too dark for Peter to see him. He wished James had given him the cloak, wished James was with them instead of making his way back to Gryffindor Tower alone. (For "I fancy a walk," read "I'm still mad at you.") And now there was someone in the hallway, trying to creep past. It was a student, he could tell, because the footsteps were too timid to belong to anyone who should be there. He could hear breathing, too, light and shallow. Then he caught sight of her profile and swore softly.

She froze. "Who's there?" said Amy, voice much higher than usual. There was a brief moment, and then Sirius came out of his hiding place, Peter stumbling behind him.

"Oh," she said, looking at him nervously.

"Oh," said Peter at the same time.

Sirius sighed. "It's past your bedtime, Junior."

Amy wrinkled her forehead. "So? Are you going to turn me in? Don't call me that."

"Where are you going?"

She crossed her arms defensively over her chest. The full moon had set, and it was hard to read her expression, but she looked upset. She was wearing pajamas, a matching flannel set, and although she did look very much like her sister, he could not imagine Julie looking so young, so sad, so afraid.

"Amy, curfew exists for a reason," he said, bending down to look her in the eye. Peter snorted behind him, clearly aware of the irony of the situation, but Sirius ignored him. "The teachers make it sound like it's just, you know, discipline, but it actually can be dangerous. You're lucky you ran into us and not a lot of Slytherins."

Amy did not look as if she felt very lucky. "I'm just going to Ravenclaw Tower," she said softly. "I only wanted to see Ella."

"Who's that?"

Peter spoke up. "Ella Greenbaum? She's another third year, I think. Why do you have to see her in the middle of the night?"

Amy twisted her hands in the hem of her shirt, and did not respond.

"Oh," said Sirius, straightening up. "You're having bad dreams."

She looked up and met his eyes. Hers were big and dark, faint starlight reflected in them. She nodded.

Peter was frowning. "I don't understand. You're going all the way across the castle at two in the morning, just to talk to your friend? Can you even get into Ravenclaw Tower? Your sister's in your dorm, why don't you wake Julie up?"

"Don't ask stupid questions." Sirius said cuttingly. He thought for a moment before he spoke to Amy. "I'll walk you there."

"Why?" asked Peter.

"You don't have to," said Amy, at the same time.

"Because it's not safe," said Sirius. "Come on. If you don't run into Mulciber you'll get caught by a teacher."

"Mulciber?" Amy frowned. "What would he be doing out?"

"Meet you back at the dorm, Pete."

Peter hesitated a moment and then shrugged. "All right," he said, and he slouched off alone. Sirius waited until he was out of sight before he set off in the opposite direction. Amy scurried after him.

Once she caught up to him, they walked in silence, side by side. Sirius had his hands in his pockets and he was frowning, deep in thought.

"Is it true that you—that you _did it_ with Julie?" she asked out of the blue. Then she had to clench her hands into fists to keep herself from clapping them to her mouth, horrified at herself for bringing it up.

Sirius didn't seem really mad, though: he just laughed. "How old are you?"

"Thirteen and a half," she said stiffly.

He nodded as if that was all he needed to know, and did not answer the question.

A minute later they stopped. There was a spiral staircase in front of them, and Amy knew that at the top was the door with the silver eagle-shaped door knocker.

"You can get in?" Sirius asked.

"Yeah. I just have to answer a riddle."

He looked at her. "You've done this before."

She nodded, glancing at her feet. They stood in silence. Then she looked up. "I didn't see it," she said softly. His face was blank. "Julie saw it. She watched out of the window. Sometimes I dream that she was the one...that she opened the window and she cast the curse and she killed—she killed..." Her voice, which had turned into a whisper, died away entirely.

Sirius swallowed once, and from the tone of his voice she could tell that his mouth was dry. "Julie...Your mother loved you."

Amy dropped her gaze, as if she was disappointed in him, and then she shrugged, gave him a small, artificial smile, and hopped onto the bottom step.

"Good night," she said, and she was gone.

* * *

><p>"Hey."<p>

A bar of chocolate slapped down on the table in front of Remus. Dark, with hazelnuts. The hand holding it was decorated with extremely chipped red nail polish, and when he looked up to the person attached, it turned out to be Lily Evans.

"Oh." He leaned back in his chair. "Hi."

"I was looking for you, to ask if you're feeling well enough to do this Saturday with Marlene, and I asked Peter where you were." She was looking at him significantly, as if she was expecting some sort of response. He shrugged. "And guess what Peter told me? Today's your _birthday_."

"Oh," Remus said again, blinking. "Yeah. I know."

She breathed in deeply through her nose, as if she was very disappointed in him. "Remus Lupin! I've been going to school with you for six years and I didn't know your birthday!"

"I'm sure there are a few other sixth-years whose birthdays you don't know," he said, half-laughing.

"So, at first I thought, we should throw him a party," she said, grinning, "a surprise party. Marlene was very into this idea. We were going to get Potter and Black to smuggle in some firewhiskey, but then we thought, no, they'll tell him, and ruin the surprise. So I got you some chocolate instead. You didn't leave us much time, you know!" And she frowned at him, as if it was his fault that Peter had not talked to her sooner.

He smiled, a warm, pleasant feeling in his chest. He hated big parties. Lily probably knew that.

"Want some?" he asked, opening the chocolate bar, breaking two rows off, and handing one to Lily. She stuck it in her mouth and then thanked him in a muffled voice.

They ate their chocolate together in a happy silence.

"Prefect meeting tonight?" Lily asked.

"Yeah."

"All right. Later, yeah? I have this extra-credit thing in Charms..." She shook her head sadly. Really she was in a very good mood—she had run into Nigel again, and she had kissed him. It wasn't the kissing that put her in a good mood so much as the feeling that she had made a decision—something she was generally bad at.

"See you," said Remus. Lily crossed the room and went upstairs, whistling as she went.

Julie was sitting on her bed with the curtains pushed back, reading a letter. She was frowning, but Lily knew by now that when Julie was truly angry her face showed no expression at all, so she felt safe enough to keep whistling as she pulled the blankets up from her bed.

"_Lumos_," she muttered, getting down on her knees to look underneath. There was a particular library book she was looking for, one that she had gotten for her Charms project and then forgotten to read. She pushed aside clothes, other books, papers and parchment.

"Oh."

"What?" Julie asked.

"I've just found my favorite bra. I didn't even realize I'd lost it."

Julie snorted. "Pig..."

Defiantly, Lily started to whistle again, until she sneezed. She tried Vanishing a few dust bunnies, but it wasn't exactly successful. _Is a dust bunny an object,_ she wondered,_ or a collection of objects?_ She would have to ask Professor McGonagall about it. Or perhaps not, considering she would have to explain why she was wondering.

There it was. _Memory and Dreams: Advanced Mental Magic._ She had to lay flat on her stomach to pull it out. She straightened up, sneezing again, and brushed off the red linen cover.

"_Accio_ not working?" Julie inquired.

"Nah, I like to have a look under my bed every once in a while," said Lily, now tenderly dusting her bra.

"Check nothing's achieved sentience."

"Exactly." Lily nodded at the letter in Julie's lap. "Bad news?"

"Not really," said Julie. "My dad wants to know if I'll come to New York for Easter hols, or if he should come to Scotland."

"Oh," said Lily, pausing. "Oh—I was going to invite you to stay with me."

"Were you?" Julie looked up. "Would you?"

"Well...don't you want to stay with your dad?"

"No," said Julie shortly. "And I'd stay here, only James invited me to his place for the 27th, and I don't know how I'd get back to school. If I sign up to stay for vacation, am I allowed to leave for a day and then come back?"

"I don't know," said Lily. "What are you doing with James?"

"It's his birthday," Julie answered. "He's having some people over."

Lily raised her eyebrows. "Oh." She threw the bra at her trunk, missed, and hopped off her bed to go get it and put it away. "Well, you can definitely stay. I'll write my dad, if you want."

"That'd be brill."

There was a pause. Lily frowned. "Where does he live?"

"What? Oh, James. Surrey."

Julie couldn't really interpret the face that Lily made, and she went back to her letter. After asking about the holiday, Richard had gone on to inquire after her exams. Then he had written a brief paragraph about his job, working in the Tri-State Wizarding Radio, with an inane story about another broadcaster's Saint Bernard. She wondered what on earth he was trying to achieve. It was the third letter he had sent this semester, although she hadn't encouraged him in the slightest. He must know she didn't like him. He wasn't an _idiot_.

Amy was probably writing him back, though. He probably just copied out the same letter to each of his daughters and changed the name.

On second thought, she really couldn't imagine him doing that.

_Best wishes, Dad._

"You're sure everything's all right?" Lily asked.

Julie thought about it. "My mum used to send me books," she said matter-of-factly. "I've only re-read things since January."

Lily didn't say anything, just nodded slowly, as if she understood.

The door opened and Marlene came in. She smiled at Lily in greeting and started to go through her wardrobe.

"Oi, Mar," said Lily, "are you going to Potter's birthday party?"

"Yeah," Marlene said, holding a peach-coloured blouse up to her shoulders and frowning. Lily started to say something else, but her friend cut her off. "Julie, what are you going to wear?"

Julie, who had lain back on her bed and was staring at the ceiling, lifted her head to look at Marlene. "What?"

"What are you going to wear to the party?"

Julie raised her eyebrows. "I was thinking of wearing trousers. Probably a shirt. I'm almost certain I'll wear some sort of clothing."

Marlene sighed with exasperation, pulling out a blue sundress. "Pity this wouldn't do for March..."

"James Potter invited you to a birthday party and you didn't tell me?" Lily asked, crossly.

"Honestly, Lily, it was only a few days ago...I don't have _anything_ nice, not since I ruined my red miniskirt..."

"You're both daft," said Julie flatly, and she sank back onto her bed.

* * *

><p>Still, Julie could admit to the faintest feeling of trepidation as she woke up on the twenty-seventh of March. She was lying on an air mattress in Lily's room—or rather, she had gone to sleep on an air mattress, and now was lying on the floor. Somewhere there must have been a puncture.<p>

Lily and her dad had painted the room themselves, a few years before Hogwarts. Three walls were turquoise, and one was pink. The whole room was much girlier than Lily would have chosen at seventeen, with a frilly lampshade, a little mirror with pink feathers tacked around the edge and glittery stickers permanently stuck to the dresser.

Julie extricated herself from the blankets—she could only vaguely remember her dreams, but the sheets were twisted around her legs, as if she had tried to run in her sleep—and stood up. It was early; the room was still dim. She didn't get dressed, just went downstairs and put the kettle on. She looked out the window for a moment; it faced a small street, lined with closely packed brick houses just like the Evans'. A few had flower boxes out in front, but none of them had real yards.

The kettle started its preliminary hissing noise, and she turned it off before it could whistle. She found herself a mug and a teabag and went back upstairs, where she climbed back into her cot and sat, holding her tea.

She had lied to herself just a minute ago. She remembered her dreams perfectly well.

One about Sirius, that had been pleasant. One about James, Marlene, and a unicorn, which had been merely nonsensical. One about Margaret.

She took tiny, quick sips of her tea and stared at the turquoise wall as sunlight began to reach through the window.

Lily was naturally a late riser. She managed well enough during the school year, but on the weekends she was never seen before ten, and that went double for the holidays. At ten-thirty, therefore, both girls were still in the bedroom, Julie clutching an empty mug, Lily dozing in a cocoon of blankets, and they were both very startled when the door slammed open.

It was Petunia. "There is a..._boy_ downstairs," she said, enunciated very clearly, "and he says he is here for you."

"Thanks," said Julie, "tell him I'll be down in five."

"Wha...?" said Lily. Her sister threw her a scornful look and left.

Lily pushed herself up onto her hands and watched Julie brush out her long hair. "Who's here?" she asked.

"Sirius," said Julie, pulling on a pair of jeans. "I can't Apparate yet, remember?" She had actually managed to disappear and appear in the middle of a wooden hoop during the last two Apparition classes; but she didn't quite trust herself going across England. And besides, Sirius was already seventeen, and had his license. She was about to see the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, after all, so she might as well appear to be law-abiding.

Lily frowned. "Sirius Black is in my _house_? Shite..." She got out of bed as well and started hunting for clothes.

The more she thought about this, the worse it seemed. The look on Petunia's face was alarming enough, but when she wondered what her dad would think of him, she grabbed the nearest t-shirt, pulled a brush through her hair once and ran out.

She stopped in the kitchen doorway. Sirius was sitting with his back to her, nodding along as Mr. Evans talked about plants. He had an African violet on the table in front of him, and he was turning it slowly, pinching off the dead blossoms. Petunia was standing, leaning against the wall behind him, staring at Sirius with an unreadable expression, but to Lily's surprise, Mr. Evans seemed very comfortable.

"...see, the light's a bit too direct where I've got it now, some of the leaves are turning brown, I'm just not sure—good morning, Lily."

"Morning, Dad." She nodded to Sirius. "Julie'll be down in a minute."

"Evans!" Sirius exclaimed, turning in his seat and giving her a wide smile. "Your dad's been telling me about his gardening."

Lily, assuming her dad was being mocked, gave him a filthy look, but his smile only widened.

"I never knew any of this stuff, my parents never kept houseplants. You look nice." This last part was delivered in exactly the same tone of voice, and Lily was momentarily horrified that he would give her the compliment before she realized that Julie had come in behind her.

Julie looked exactly the same as usual. Her long light hair was pulled into a high ponytail, and she was wearing the leather jacket that she wore more or less every day she was out of Hogwarts robes.

"I'm ready to go."

"Right." Sirius stood up. "Thanks very much, Mr. Evans. Evans—see you around." And he actually winked at Lily.

She walked them to the front door, as if she wanted to make sure they actually left.

"Want me to say anything to James for you?" asked Sirius.

"Yeah, you tell Potter he can go—" She broke off, looked over her shoulder at Petunia, and started over. "No, thanks. Julie, don't get back too late."

Julie smiled. It was a real smile, not mocking or unkind, and Lily was very glad to see it. "Bye."

* * *

><p>Sirius led her by the hand, looking for somewhere secluded to Disapparate from. Cokeworth on a Saturday morning: everyone who had to work that day was already gone, and the rest were just getting up, watering their worn-out geraniums, getting in their used cars to run errands. The sky was gray, as usual.<p>

"What'd you get James?" asked Sirius.

"Some records." Julie sighed. "It is so hard to shop for a rich boy."

Sirius laughed.

"Oh, god," she went on, "do I have to shop for you now too?"

"My birthday's in November," said Sirius, looking sideways at her.

"Good point," said Julie, "not very likely we'll still be together by then."

He gave her another sharp, sideways look, but did not respond. A pause, then: "I'm not rich anymore anyway."

"Och, puir wee laddie…" His fingers tightened around hers, and she laughed, pleased with herself and the world.

"This is all right," said Sirius abruptly. They had reached a small playground at the end of the street and were tucked away behind the dumpsters out back. "No one will see us here."

Julie immediately let go of his hand, curled her fingers in his collar and pulled him closer, slanting her mouth across his. His hands moved to her waist, slid down her hips as he deepened the kiss, before he broke it off suddenly, laughing.

"I was talking about Apparating, Jule..."

"I know what you were _talking_ about," she said mockingly, and he took her by the elbow and spun her into darkness.

They arrived on the top of a low hill, in the middle of a copse of leafless birches. They might have been planted expressly to conceal Apparating visitors, although when Julie stepped out from the cover of the trees she didn't see many signs of life. They were standing in a landscape of rolling hills, meadows that would be beautiful in a month, green and flowering. There were a few houses to either side, large, comfortable-looking, and far away, but the one she assumed was their destination was directly in front of them. Down the hill, across the road, and up a long, meandering driveway.

The house was long, low, and very beautiful, built from a soft brown stone, its many-paned windows glittering in the late morning light. Some kind of shrubbery was heaped artfully in front, a brown mist of branches and buds, only a few holly bushes adding dark colour. The driveway looped lazily around to the front door, where a wrought iron lantern hung. She counted four chimneys. Two were puffing smoke, and one, the only overt evidence of wizards in residence, was puffing gold sparks.

"Bit of a change from Cokeworth, isn't it?" said Sirius, and she realized her jaw was slack. He was standing in that lounging way he had, hands in his pockets, laughing at her without laughing. If there was a wall to lean on, he would be leaning on it.

She closed her mouth and cut her eyes at him.

He started making his way down the hill, and she followed. Behind the house, there was some kind of water, maybe a pond or a stream, shining under the dull March sun.

"Did you used to have a house like this?" Julie asked.

"No," said Sirius almost curtly. "The Blacks have land in Yorkshire, but they don't keep it up. I grew up in London."

"But you live here now."

He nodded.

Now Julie was beginning to feel uncomfortable. It wasn't just the money; money she could laugh at. But she couldn't laugh at good taste. If only the house hadn't been so beautiful! And the inside was even worse: the foyer, furnished in dark wood, the green-shaded lamp, the house-elf, dressed in a clean monogrammed sheet (all right, that she could laugh at) who showed them in.

"Mrs. Potter is in the music room, Master Black, Miss…"

"Thanks, Twitch," said Sirius, and then, in an undertone, "What's the matter, never seen a house-elf before?"

"Shut it," was Julie's unimaginative response.

He led her into a bright room with walls of blue satin. James' mother was sitting at a small table, reading letters. There was a glossy grand piano beside her, and a magnificent great horned owl clutched the lid and swayed, its orange eyes half closed. A concert harp, slightly taller than Julie, rested in another corner. She wondered who in the family played either instrument.

"Sirius," Mrs. Potter said, standing. She was tall and very elegant, with an oval face and very straight, ink black hair loosely swooped up. She was wearing plain robes of a bright turquoise colour and small ruby earrings. She swept across the room and wrapped Sirius in a hug. And to Julie's surprise, he hugged her back, smiling. When she drew back, she held him by the shoulders and looked at him critically, in the way mothers have examined their homecoming children since time immemorial. They do it to see how much their children have grown, and whether they are taller than their mothers yet. Sirius was, but not by much.

"Mrs. Potter, this is Julie."

Mrs. Potter turned to the teenage girl in her sitting room and caught her, almost by surprise, in a moment of heartfelt longing. Julie's eyes were wide and the expression on her face desolate. Just for a second, and then she put on blank politeness and curved her lips into a smile.

"Of course it is," said Mrs. Potter quietly, and she put out both of her hands and enclosed one of Julie's in them. "You're very welcome here." She stepped back and said to both of them, "James is upstairs, in the yellow room."

* * *

><p>Lily would have slept in later, but she was up, so she made breakfast. All she could find was oatmeal, which she hated, but she fixed herself a bowl and brought it into the dining room, where her dad was still examining his African violet.<p>

"So that was Sirius Black, eh?" said Mr. Evans.

"Yes."

"One of those blokes you complain about so much?"

"Yes."

"Hm," said Mr. Evans. "He didn't seem so bad to me."

"Just because he can be charming…" Lily muttered. "Anyway, it's very easy to impress people when you're good-looking."

"Hm," said Mr. Evans again, and Petunia gave Lily a sharp look, as if she were surprised her sister had noticed. "Well, he seemed very interested in my violet."

"If he hadn't," said Lily grumpily, "I would have hexed him."

Petunia threw her a second uncomfortable glance.

* * *

><p>Of course they played Quidditch. The entire Quidditch team was there, and Sirius, Peter and Remus had been putting up with James for six years, so they played Quidditch.<p>

"Julie can be the other captain," said James graciously, and then, to Sirius, "What? You're rubbish."

Julie looked very smug. James picked Sirius first anyway. But Julie was smart enough to pick Samantha Vickens, who, although she was just fourteen and shorter than everyone else, was the only trained Seeker, and Marlene had to Seek for James' team.

"Wands or no wands?" asked Peter. The standard rules of Quidditch, of course, strictly forbid wands on pitch, but the four sixth-year boys had developed their own version which was, in their opinion, much more fun.

James grinned. "Wands. If you make someone fall off their broom, they get a penalty."

"That's the only rule?" Brandon Douglas asked dubiously.

That was the only rule. It was a long, terrifying game. Samantha was the only one who actually fell off her broom, when Sirius hit her with a Jelly-legs Jinx and she lost her balance, and Julie took the penalty shot and hit Sirius in the face with the Quaffle. Will Preston thought she should get ten points for that, and in the ensuing debate James scored four goals without anyone noticing. It bothered him so much that nobody noticed that he hit Will from behind with a Tarantallegra. Will, dancing around on a broom, looked so ridiculous that it was several minutes before anyone could stop laughing to perform the counter-jinx.

The score was two-thirty to one-ninety when James called for a break. He did this by waving to his mother, who had come out to the wide back lawn where they were playing, putting his hands to his mouth and bellowing, "CAAAAAKE!"

So they all trooped inside, carrying their brooms over their shoulders (borrowed from James, who got a new one most birthdays) and sat down in the dining room, where they had lemon cake and butterbeer. Midway through, Julie asked Marlene (who had been there before—the McKinnons were another prestigious, "liberal" pureblood family, and James and Marlene had known each other since childhood) for directions to the bathroom.

The hallway, papered in a delicate red and cream paisley, was hung with family photographs from the last century. Generations of tall, dark-haired Potters smiled and waved. Near the end of the hall, there was one photo of three young Indian women. The one in the middle was wearing red and gold cloth and extravagant jewelry, and her hands were painted with an orangey-brown dye. When Julie looked closer, she recognized one of the other girls as a young Mrs. Potter. The three were talking and laughing with each other. They were probably sisters.

She looked at it for a long time before stepping away. She felt uncomfortable, guilty, her stomach knotted, and for this reason, perhaps, she turned not to her left, as she had been directed, but to her right.

Or (because this is Julie) maybe she saw the telephone on the desk, through the half-open door, and she felt nosy.

She slipped inside and closed the door behind her. The room was an office, spacious and paneled in dark wood. She was at the front corner of the house, and two of the walls had those lovely windows in them, eight by four panes. The glass must have been quite old; it was thick and wavy, so that the shrubbery beyond was a little distorted. The room was furnished with a desk and a few chairs, and sitting on the desk was an antique-looking rotary telephone. There was a fire burning low in the grate, and on the mantelpiece, together with more silver-framed photographs, there was a jar of glittering green Floo powder. There were two neat stacks of papers on the desk; she drew near and read on the top of one, _Incident Reports, Nov 76—Feb 77_, and on the other simply the word _CONFIDENTIAL_ in red. Not quite brave enough to poke through these, Julie turned and looked around. Next to the door, most of the wall was taken up with a long bulletin board, hung with overlapping news clippings. There was still some space at the end, and then the most recent came first.

_Muggle Family of Five Found Dead in Brixton, she read._

_Rumors of "Death Eater" Activity Near Hogsmeade._

_Ministry Expending "Every Effort" to Capture You-Know-Who, Potter Says._

_Another Attempt At Liaison With Giants Fails._

_"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named" Now Targeting Ministry Workers, Sources Reveal._

_Suspected Death Eater Found Dead._

Julie paused with her finger next to this one. It was dated to last October, and she realized that she remembered talking about it with Lily and Marlene, over breakfast in the Great Hall. _Black was found in her bedroom, with her throat cut…_yes, she had talked about it with Sirius, too. She could just hear his voice, dry with half-concealed anger. "Dear old Auntie Aludra, yeah?"

That had been right before they found Niamh…and then she was distracted, and moved on down the board, all the way down to where the clippings were yellow and brittle.

_Riots Break Out at Squib Rights Marches; Pureblood Extremists Responsible, Some Say._

_Alexander Potter New Head of DMLE._

_Head Auror Potter Leads Raid on Norfolk Neo-Grindelwaldians._

Perhaps it was unavoidable, when one was so politically prominent, to end up in the newspapers fairly often, but still, it seemed just a touch narcissistic to cut the articles out and hang them on the wall. Also, what the hell was a Neo-Grindelwaldian? This one was dated from 1963, and Julie realized with a start that she had learned very little History of Magic from after the eighteenth century.

Then again, History class being what it was, she hadn't learned much before the eighteenth century either.

_Albus Dumbledore Refuses Minister's Position Once Again._

_Valentine Yaxley Dead Under Mysterious Circumstances._

Julie stopped again. This article was dated July 1958. There was a small black-and-white picture of a smug-looking man with a hard-edged face and dark hair, and underneath it the column read:

_Valentine Yaxley, 53, was found dead in his Sussex home this Sunday, writes Peter McMahon. Ministry sources have just confirmed that the cause of death was homicide by gun (a primitive Muggle weapon), but no explanations have been offered for the possible identity of a killer or the unusual method. Yaxley is remembered for his generous patronage of the Sussex Young Wizards Association, a community organization for magical children, and for his outspoken political views. "Some people called him old-fashioned, certainly," said his son Wyndham, 26, speaking from London this morning, where he is working with investigators. "But he was well-liked and respected in his community. This act of senseless violence has been a terrible shock for all of us."_

_Yaxley was known for his strong anti-Muggle views, and was in fact accused of offering monetary support to the Dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald during the early 1940s. He always contested such claims and was declared innocent of any collaboration in 1946. In his later years, however, Yaxley did not shy from controversial statements, saying on one occasion—_

"If you're looking for the ladies' room, this isn't it," said a deep, familiar voice.

Julie breathed in sharply and froze. Then she turned very slowly, so as to look as if she hadn't been startled at all. James' father was standing with one hand on the doorknob. His expression was faintly amused; she supposed that when you raised someone like James you developed a little perspective on this sort of thing.

"You have a big house," said Julie. "It's easy to get lost."

Mr. Potter laughed. "All right, Julie. Across the hall." He opened the door for her and made a polite little half-bow. She was walking out, head held very high, when he spoke again and she stopped. "Julie," he said, "is there any point in asking you to please be careful?"

She didn't really understand the question, but she shrugged indifferently. "If it makes you feel better."

He smiled ruefully and closed the door.

* * *

><p>Much later, after they had given up entirely on finding the Snitch, they all sat in James' room. James passed around a bottle of firewhiskey and they all talked in slow, leisurely voices. The idea had been to wait until Samantha went home before getting out any alcohol, but this had long since been forgotten. Samantha had joined the team in her second year. She had always been the youngest, and she had always been very good at being so quiet that the older kids forgot about her and let her do whatever she wanted. Like most people with protective older siblings, she was very scornful of hypocritical behavior, and very confident in her ability to hold her liquor.<p>

Kiran, who had just joined the team this year and was still a relative unknown, was watching her with his dark eyes. He knew she wasn't exactly supposed to be there, but she was confident he wouldn't call attention to her for two reasons: first, he was only fifteen himself, and second, she had seen him snogging Isabelle Fontaine behind the greenhouses, and he knew she had, and for whatever reason he was very keen that nobody should find out.

Kiran was cute, Samantha thought, even next to Sirius Black. She had fancied Black for about a nanosecond during third year, before she realized he was the most immature person she had ever met. And now he was apparently going out with Julie Fraser…you wouldn't know to look at them. Samantha gave them credit for this. She hated it when a brand-new couple couldn't stop showing off—putting fingers and hands on each other, laughing too loudly at each other's jokes, whispering in each other's ears—as if that was suddenly polite, just because they had a date. Julie and Sirius sat across from each other, and occasionally they made little faces at each other, but it was pleasantly easy to ignore.

"Wanna…wanna play Exploding Snap?" suggested Brandon, passing the bottle to Kiran. James got out a deck of cards and passed them to Remus, who shuffled and dealt.

They played in a comfortably liquor-soaked quiet, broken by occasional small explosions. One lit James' sleeve on fire and Julie drenched him with an _Aguamenti_.

"Prob'ly shouldn't be doing this right now…" James murmured.

Marlene giggled. Samantha had always thought Marlene was _so_ pretty, with her big blue eyes, and the dusting of freckles across her nose. She looked even prettier in the half-light. Her golden hair was shining, and her small pink lips were moving, saying something Samantha couldn't understand…she was even prettier when there were two of her side by side…Samantha's eyelids were fluttering…

Two sounds in quick succession—a slam and clink. After a moment of thought she figured it out: the bedroom door had opened, and James had shoved the firewhiskey under the bed.

She blinked and Mr. Potter appeared in the doorway. "Who here is under seventeen?" he asked. There was a pause; they all looked at each other. Then Samantha, Kiran, Marlene and (after Marlene kicked her) Julie raised their hands. "Right," he continued briskly. "Ava is going to Apparate you four home now. James, you can send everyone else home who's going home. I have to go into work."

"Wha-what?" James scrambled to his feet. "What happened? Do you need help?"

Mr. Potter bent down, reached under the bed and pulled out the bottle of firewhiskey. "Really, James? I'll see you when I get back. Your mum might go in too but she'll talk to you first. You four, come with me."

They were getting up; Will and Brandon stood as well, confused, getting their things together. Mr. Potter ushered them out while Remus and Peter exchanged worried glances.

"Dad," said James, almost tripping over the carpet as he came to the door, "What time are you getting back?"

"I don't know," his father told him, and he quickly put his arm around James' shoulders and squeezed.

Mrs. Potter was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. She had changed into navy blue Ministry robes and was looking in a mirror hanging on the wall, pinning her hair tightly to the back of her head. The expression on her face and even the way she stood had changed as well. She looked businesslike and a little bit dangerous, and Julie admired her even more than she already had.

"See you later, Ava," said Mr. Potter. He briefly kissed his wife and then went out the front door. Like most Wizarding families, the Potters had Anti-Apparition Charms set up inside their house.

"Thanks for the lovely party, Mrs. Potter," said Will politely. His eyes were very wide; he looked confused and a bit tipsy.

"You're very welcome, Will," she said. "I'm sorry it ended so suddenly, but I hope you all had a good time. Julie, if you tell me where you're staying, I'll take you home first. Any of you who have a fireplace at home, you're welcome to use our Floo."

Julie gave her the address in Cokeworth. Mrs. Potter took her arm, gave her a moment to prepare, and pulled her into the crushing darkness of Disapparition.

They popped into existence in the middle of the street, right in front of the Evans' house. Julie realized she had made a mistake, but when she looked around, she didn't see anybody at a window, and it was well past twilight.

"You're staying with Muggles, is that right?" asked Mrs. Potter.

"Yes."

Mrs. Potter sighed. "Well, I want you to keep your eyes open, and be very careful. It's going to be a wild couple of weeks…or more, if you talk to Alec…"

Julie looked at her very seriously. "All right. And...thank you."

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Julie turned and went up the walk. A red-headed girl had opened the door and was waiting for her in a golden rectangle of light, and Mrs. Potter heard her ask Julie if she'd had a good time.

"Yeah," said Julie, and she let her friend give her a hug before they both went in.

The door closed, and in the growing darkness the witch outside disappeared.

* * *

><p>A little bit more than two weeks later, two weeks after Mr. Potter came home from a twenty-two hour shift in the Ministry, two weeks after Lily looked at her morning <em>Prophet<em> and screamed aloud, and one day after Professor McGonagall gave a speech about the importance of sixth-year exams, Julie and Lily went to the library together, and Julie forgot her Potions textbook.

(What happened on the night of James' birthday can wait. It was, eventually, very important; it shocked all of Wizarding Britain. But it didn't really shock Julie. The lesson that everyone else had to learn the next day was one that she already knew—and this is, really, her story.)

They had their Transfiguration textbooks out, and they were both taking notes at a furious speed. They were utterly silent; Lily was literally pulling on her own hair. Although neither had admitted it, they were racing each other to the end of the chapter. Across the room, the hands of the library clock steadily ticked.

"Done!"

"Done!"

They looked at each other sourly, neither content with a tie. "All right," said Lily after a pause, "What about the Potions essay?"

Julie snorted derisively, rummaging in her bag for _Advanced Potionmaking_. Lily got out her copy and rifled through the pages. She looked up when Julie swore.

"What?"

"I don't have it...I think I left it in the classroom yesterday." She was almost certain. She had been working with Sirius that day, and she had made a basic, embarrassing mistake, putting in the porcupine spines before the lemon peel. Their Celarity Draught had bubbled over, pouring all over the floor, and Julie had been frantically trying to salvage a flaskful before the bell rang while Sirius stayed at his chair and snarked at her, and in the ensuing chaos she had left her book on her seat.

"Just give me a mo," she mumbled to Lily, and she walked out as quickly as she could without being accused of running in the library.

It was a quarter to nine, and the sky was dark outside the castle windows. Then she went through the Entrance Hall down to the dungeons, and sunlight disappeared entirely. She hurried through the torchlit corridors to the Potions classroom and quickly retrieved her book. On her way out, she decided to take a shortcut that James had shown her once—a back corridor, lined with storage rooms, that led to a staircase to the second floor. It was here, in this narrow hallway, that she encountered someone she did not expect to see at all: Regulus Black.

He was leaning against the corridor in the same bored, elegant way his brother had—a little more bored, a little less elegant. He was shorter and slimmer, and his hair was cut differently. But it wasn't just the eyes, the shape of the nose and mouth—when he looked up, sharply, like a dog catching a scent, and stared at her, there was something in the wary hostility of his expression that reminded her so much of Sirius that for a moment, just a short one, she let her guard down.

"Hullo," she said, very comfortably. Immediately, he looked twice as suspicious.

"Fraser," he said, in a voice that was slightly louder than necessary. It was this small strangeness that made Julie realize that she shouldn't be feeling comfortable at all.

"A little close to curfew for loitering in the dungeons, isn't it?"

"Mind your own business and I'll mind mine," he said flatly. "Anyway, I happen to live here."

"Right," she said, with a humorless laugh, "I'd forgotten what peculiar taste you Slytherins have."

But Julie couldn't think of a reason to pick a fight with Regulus Black, and she had one very good reason not to. She walked past him, and then he did something particularly strange: he followed her, moving sideways, with his back to the wall.

She stopped, and stared. "Excuse me?"

He looked—guilty? Uncomfortable. He was a little bit easier to read than Sirius, but that wasn't saying much.

"Are you going to let me pass?"

"Wasn't stopping you," he mumbled.

"Right," she said slowly. "Let's try this again."

And she walked down the hall. She got to the doorway at the end, opening onto the staircase she wanted to take, before he called out.

"Fraser!" He was actually jogging towards her.

"Look," she sighed, calmly moving her hand towards her wand, "this is how this works, Black. I go upstairs, back to my friends, who are, I am sure, anxiously awaiting me. You stay down here, in the hole in the ground that you call home. Neither of us ever needs to speak to the other for any reason. Plan?"

"Yeah, sure." His expression was unreadable again. A different kind of discomfort. "You don't honestly think my brother is in love with you, do you?"

"I'm—I'm _sorry_? What?" She gaped at him. "Your _brother_? I didn't think you even called him that."

A faint red flush appeared along his cheekbones.

"Don't worry," she added, relishing her own nastiness. "He likes me better than he likes you." She waited for him to respond, and when he did not, she stepped around him and through the doorway.

He looked after her for a minute. What a stupid, stupid thing to ask. Then he went back to the doorway he'd been standing in front of and stuck his head in.

"She's gone."

It was a small room. Empty crates, stamped with different apothecary's names, were stacked against the wall. Mulciber had pulled one out to sit on, and another to use as a table, spread with parchment. Most were covered with his own handwriting. He had grabbed a few and hastily tucked them inside a crate; now he pulled them back out. "Fraser?"

Regulus nodded to confirm it.

"Nosy bitch," Mulciber muttered under his breath.

"Well, she doesn't have any idea."

"Good."

Regulus stood with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched. "How's it going?"

"Bad," said Mulciber curtly. "This would be so easy if Filch were the only one checking the mail...but there's Aurors at the school gate...I don't have any idea what sort of safeguards they have up, but I have to encrypt this enough that _they_ can't understand it, but Rosier and Wilkes can..."

"And—you're sure, are you, that Rosier and Wilkes are the right people to ask? I mean, what happened with Malfoy?"

"Malfoy doesn't know a good idea when he hears it," the older boy snapped. He put his wand to the parchment and thought. He had already gone through most of the spells he knew; he had changed his handwriting, turned it backwards, written in invisible ink, made the page appear blank to anyone whose last name did not begin with M, and still he wasn't satisfied. Everything he knew felt elementary and obvious. What he would like to do was make the parchment unreadable to anyone who did not have a Dark Mark, but not having one himself, he didn't know any of the relevant spells.

"Look," said Regulus with a sigh. Mulciber was beginning to think he had made a mistake in asking Black to be a lookout. The fourth year was too anxious, and asked too many questions. "You _don't know_ where the entrance or the exit to this passage is."

"Yeah, but," and this part, Mulciber didn't fully understand himself, but he was a bit proud of nevertheless, "Siobhan's going to find that out."

Regulus scoffed. "What? How the hell would she know?"

Mulciber considered this. "I guess you could say, she has some really good connections."

"She's a half-blood," Regulus muttered.

But Mulciber only smiled, annoyingly sure of himself. "That's not what I meant."

And long after midnight, they finished their work.


	15. Unforeseen and Unforgotten

**RECAP**  
>Julie, Marlene and the boys all go to James' house for his birthday, but his parents get called into the Ministry for some kind of emergency. Meanwhile, Mulciber is being shady as always, trying to bewitch his own handwriting so that he can get in touch with Rosier and Wilkes, two recent Slytherin graduates.<p>

**XV. Unforeseen and Unforgotten**

On the morning of the twenty-eighth of March something was very wrong in the world, and Lily felt it. It showed itself first when Lily woke up before Julie, something she could not remember happening, ever. She stared at the other girl, still asleep on the floor, pale and sweaty, and wondered how much of a hangover she was going to have to put up with.

Yawning hugely, she rolled out of bed and changed her pajama pants for a pair of jeans. She didn't change out of her old, worn t-shirt, because she didn't want to put a bra on. That was probably the worst thing about boarding school—having to get completely dressed before breakfast.

Petunia was up, drinking tea at the kitchen table, and she watched out of the corner of her eye as Lily fixed herself toast and eggs.

"Good morning," said Lily politely, seating herself at the other end of the table.

"An owl came for you," was Petunia's response, "I gave it money out of your bag."

"What? Oh." The paper had arrived; Lily took it and glanced at the front page. She got up to get the tea kettle, looked back at the paper, and froze.

_SEVEN WIZENGAMOT MEMBERS DEAD IN ANTI-MUGGLEBORN CAMPAIGN: "LORD VOLDEMORT" CLAIMS RESPONSIBILITY FOR BREAK-IN. _

Petunia's jaw was clenched. She took in her sister's reaction and then said in an even tone of voice, "So that's bad, then."

Lily covered her mouth with one hand. "I have to—I have to get Julie. Oh my God...oh my God..."

Julie wasn't surprised. That made it worse for Lily somehow, as she shook her awake, as Julie pulled her legs out of the wildly tangled sheets, as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Slow down," she commanded. "What did you say? What...oh."

Oh. Julie considered the death toll, the Unforgivable Curses, the destroyed property, the slogans painted on Ministry walls in green paint that could not be washed away, mulled it all over, chewed it and swallowed it and came out with _Oh _. Then she got up, and found a brush, and started dragging it through her hair while Lily sat on her bed and pressed her shaking fingers to her mouth.

"Weren't you expecting something to happen?" she asked, but Lily couldn't speak. She just shook her head. _Not this. _Julie looked at her with sympathy, a little condescension, something like tenderness, and Lily didn't see any of it, lost in panicked thought. _Could be me could be Dad could be Petunia Mary Remus _. She looked up when Julie touched her shoulder. "Lil," she murmured, "any chance of a coffee? My head is..."

Lily stared at her in silence, incapacitated.

"Right," said Julie. "Guess I can find some myself."

* * *

><p>There were two long, empty weeks to get through. Lily spent hours in bed revising. Julie revised at the kitchen table, and in the afternoons Petunia would sit across from her. The striking of typewriter keys and the scratching of a quill filled the silences. Lily wrote long letters to Marlene, but didn't send them. Marlene, her pureblood friend. She must have been afraid as well, but she wasn't the one being smeared in graffiti on Ministry walls. Lily was withdrawing at home as well, pulling back some of the sympathy she had extended to Julie. She didn't like being afraid, and she especially didn't like being the only one afraid, so she curled up like something wounded and hid.<p>

Julie didn't even really notice. They spent the two weeks silently coexisting, and then Mr. Evans drove them to London, so they could spend four hours silently sitting in an old car. Once they got to the platform, Lily went off, without a word, to sit with Nigel.

Julie wandered down the train and left her trunk in a compartment with Mary and, of all people, Priya Shah. Slightly put off by the idea of sitting with a Slytherin—even one like Priya, who had never been involved in any serious _incidents _—and surprised that Mary wasn't as well, she moved on, and ended up sitting with some seventh-years, Will and Brandon among them. They were all very loud and forcibly carefree in a way that suited her present desire to empty her head of all thought. And then, around midday, someone arrived who suited that desire even better—Sirius Black.

He slid the door open and stuck his head in. "Oi, Jule, c'mere a second, will you?"

"Yeah, all right." She stretched lazily as she stood up.

"Keeps you on a tight leash, does he?" said Will.

Julie looked at him sideways. "You jealous?" she asked politely before following Sirius into the corridor.

He turned to face her. He had already changed into his robes, and Julie was still wearing jeans, torn in the knee, and a plain t-shirt. She lifted her hand, curled her fingers so that she could touch the backs of her fingernails to his cheek.

He pulled her closer and kissed her. They didn't really talk anymore; all their time alone was for this. The conversations they had had—before and during the night of her detention, when she had found him alone in the common room—had been nice, interesting, and maybe she should have missed them more. But really this was what had made them interesting: the promise of sex. The electric energy of something that was going to arrive compared to the kinetic energy of something that had arrived. It was what they were here for, and they both knew it.

He pulled away, his hand moving from her hair to her chin to his side. "We should..."

"Yeah."

She took him by the wrist and led him away from the compartment she had just left, not wanting to be seen through the window—although Will must have known what they were doing. It was funny, she thought. Somebody like Mary obviously liked her privacy, which led her to keep her head down and never do anything that would get people's attention. Julie wondered why she wasn't more like that. She was hardly ashamed of herself, she just wished people would mind their own business. Then she went out and did something like pull Sirius Black into the loo of the Hogwarts Express.

"Classy," he muttered into her neck, as she reached around him to latch the door.

She could have gone after anyone else. It really wouldn't have been difficult to find someone who wasn't in her year or her house, someone who wouldn't make her life more complicated, antagonize Lily, aggravate James. And yet—

More than kissing itself, it was feeling the heat of someone else's face against her own that was hard to get used to. She was reaching for the fastenings of his robes, he was pushing the small of her back into the sink, tangling his hands in her hair. And then he was kissing her and she was kissing him and she did not want to think at all.

God, it was good. It was so good.

* * *

><p>If putting off a decision counts as making a decision, Niamh had made a decision. She had never managed to say no to her sister, but she was still capable of silence. It was, she thought, her greatest gift.<p>

She was standing in a pool of light. She could feel the heat of the torch above her and the cold of the stone behind her. Across the corridor, she could see the outline of the forest through a window. It was almost nine o'clock, and it was deep twilight. By the end of the month, this would be light dusk.

By the end of the month, she would have made the decision. Somehow all the factors in that decision would have balanced out into yes or no. Will or won't. Past or future.

Just in time, another factor arrived.

"Hello, Niamh," said the factor, showing his teeth.

"Hello," she said. It was the easiest word to say, but it had the unfortunate effect of making Mulciber think he was welcome.

_He doesn't care about welcomes anyway, _she reminded herself. He leaned himself against the wall, blocking the window with his body. They were on the seventh floor, very near to Gryffindor Tower. She had paused here, finished with wandering for the night; he must have come looking for her, perhaps he had been following her. _He has been following me all night. _

He smiled again. _He has steel teeth, _she thought, _so none of this is real. _

_He can still hurt me. _

"I've been hearing a lot about you from your sister," he said. She watched the tip of his tongue move in his mouth and didn't answer.

"You know, she thinks very highly of you."

He waited, and then, in a voice just a touch less patient, "She trusts you."

"Yes," said Niamh quietly, because he seemed to want an answer, and sometimes when she gave people what they wanted they left her alone.

"She's hoping you can tell her something—can tell _us _something."

"I know." She wished Julie were there. Julie was so much better at hiding behind her own skin that it almost wasn't hiding at all, and Niamh could hide there herself.

"And I think she's told you how high the stakes are."

Niamh didn't answer this one, but only because her stomach was turning. But he didn't like that—he pushed off from his wall and leaned over to hers, putting a hand on her shoulder. She was pinned like a beetle in a display case.

"Niamh," he said,

_Don't touch me don't touch me don't touch me _

"—I think you know what the right decision is. For your sister. I think you've already made a decision. But if you haven't...if you're stalling, if you're faking, if you've been _lying _this whole time—"

And his fingers seized like a vise.

She bore the pain. She had done it before.

"I'm not afraid of you," she said, but her voice was as soft as a shiver.

Slowly, he released her, and slowly, he smiled. Those steel teeth, steel eyes. "There's more than one way to be afraid," he said.

She replied, "I think you should go now."

He stood with his arms crossed and looked at her, unconvinced.

"You should go now," she repeated. "I'm going to close my eyes, and when I open them, you'll be gone." And she closed them.

In blackness she heard him breathe and then softly laugh. "Are you having a _premonition _?" His voice was light with disbelief.

She wasn't. She was just being hopeful.

* * *

><p>"What the fuck are you two trying to accomplish?"<p>

Julie didn't sound particularly displeased, but Lily jumped, wearing, she was sure, an expression of discomfort identical to the one which had just appeared on James' face. Julie was walking ahead of them, and when she spun around to look, they were on opposite sides of the corridor, as far as they could get from each other. James had caught up to the girls as they came out of the library to remind Julie about their first Quidditch practice, and somehow he and Lily had started arguing about homework, of all things—why either of them felt so strongly about Memory Charms Lily wasn't quite sure, but they had both started waving their hands about and aggressively correcting each other.

"What?" Lily asked.

"Accomplish?" said James at the same time, his voice even more skeptical.

"I thought you were babysitting me," said Julie, one side of her mouth twisting into a smirk. "Pretty rubbish at it, aren't you?"

"We're—_ I'm _not—"

"No one's babysitting you," said James irritably. "You don't have to listen to us if it's so painful."

"Cheers." Julie turned again and set off. In the moment it took Lily to translate thought to actual movement of her feet, she had been left exactly where she didn't want to be—alone with James.

She started to walk again, brushing the wall with her fingertips as if it was the base in a game of tag. "If your wristwork weren't so sloppy, you wouldn't get the popping noise," she said crossly, not wanting to open up any other conversation.

"The noise is supposed to happen," James snapped.

Lily rolled her eyes extravagantly. "Sorry, I didn't realize you try to seem incompetent, but that explains _so much _—"

She broke off, realizing she could hear voices up ahead. They were just two corridors away from Gryffindor Tower, and it was time for everyone to be returning to bed. But she heard the tone before she could make out words, and something made her anxious.

It was Julie's voice, low and threatening. Lily felt sure that she had pulled out her wand.

"—liked it so much, you want another?"

James swore, and started to run—Lily followed him and passed him, jostling his shoulder, and they burst around in the corner in quick succession, breathing fast, anxious, and angry.

In a glance she took in the scene: Niamh Fairchild, curled on the floor with saucer eyes, Caius Mulciber backed against the opposite wall, tense and coiled to spring, and Julie in the middle, towering over him, her eyes glinting with fury.

Lily launched herself down the corridor, drawing her wand with her right hand and shoving Julie away with her left elbow. _Levicorpus! _sparked into her mind, the first and most obvious thing, and before Mulciber had even really seen her he was in the air, hanging by his ankle.

"Oh, come _on _," Julie growled. James looked up and down the corridor and then stopped himself, folded his arms and leaned back against the wall next to Niamh, watching.

Lily hesitated, not sure where she needed to go first, but Niamh made a small noise and Lily turned and crouched by her.

"Are you all right?" she said softly.

"I am all right," Niamh echoed.

"Don't bother," said Mulciber, "you won't get any sense out of her."

He spoke very calmly, considering he was dangling upside down.

Lily stood. "What's going on?" she snapped. Mulciber didn't respond, and so she looked at Julie, who raised her eyebrows.

"I just got here. Sometimes I ask before hexing..."

Mulciber laughed derisively. His face was turning red.

Lily sighed. "Niamh, what's going on?"

Niamh, who was still curled against the wall, chewed on her lip for a moment. "I think he was just going," she offered finally.

Lily turned back and examined Mulciber again. She flicked her wand and thought _Liberacorpus _and he fell in a heap. He lay there for a moment without making a sound.

Wearily, she said, "Get out of here." And they all watched him clamber to his feet.

He flicked his gaze from face to face and ended at Niamh. "Think about it," he said calmly.

There was enough time for Niamh to react, if she was going to, and then Julie took a step forward.

"The next time you threaten a Gryffindor, I will find you, and I will make sure we're alone."

Mulciber smiled beatifically. "And I will report you, and you will be expelled. I understand how disciplinary records work, _Fraser. _"

"Do you? Will you? And have you been studying Memory Charms as well, or is the Slytherin class behind? I know not all of you are really...academically inclined..."

Half of her mouth was tugging itself into a grin.

"_Julie _," Lily scolded.

Mulciber just raised his eyebrows as if he couldn't think of a clever response. He didn't seem cowed at all. He shrugged his shoulders once and left.

"Julie," she repeated weakly. The sound of Mulciber's footsteps died away.

"What," said Julie.

"Did I hear you say what I think I heard?"

"You tell me what you think and I'll tell you if you're right. Niamh," she said, abruptly shutting Lily out, "What does he want from you?"

"Influence," Niamh answered, blue eyes clear and unfocused, "Power, respect." She turned her head and snapped her gaze onto Julie. "Indirectly," she added.

"What?"

They stared at each other for a moment, Niamh intent and Julie confused. Neither seemed aware at all of Lily and James watching them. Then Niamh braced her hands against the wall and pushed herself to a standing position.

"Thank you," she said to Lily, "for hexing him. I don't mind that it didn't do anything."

Lily narrowed her eyes, too bewildered to reply.

Niamh looked around, her gaze darting from corner to corner. Without another word she turned and left. Julie called after her.

"Niamh! _Niamh! _Jesus _Christ _, what's that supposed to mean?" With a strangled sort of half-groan, half-sigh, Julie was gone as well.

James was still leaning against the wall. He had not moved since Lily had jinxed Mulciber, and she had no idea what he was thinking.

"You know she wouldn't actually," he said. Lily shot him a questioning look. "She's not actually going to Obliviate him," he clarified.

"How do you know?"

"She just—she just _wouldn't _. It's not her style."

Lily thought she knew what he meant. Julie was a physical being; she didn't usually hurt people without drawing blood. Still, she would rather have been reassured by Julie's moral compass than by her style.

Nothing, nothing frightened or disgusted Lily more than the thought of using magic on someone else's mind. Or someone else using it on her, picking and choosing her memories or planting opinions or forcing ideas into her head. She had been thinking about it over the whole Easter holiday, since the attack on the Ministry.

She thought aloud. "That was the first time I'd ever heard of someone actually using the Imperius curse."

James threw her a sharp glance. "There was a case a few years ago, but not so high profile." He paused, as if debating whether he should keep talking, and took a deep breath.

"I knew him," he said. "Anthony Bones, the man who—"

"Who was just Imperiused."

"Yeah, well. He used to come to my parents' holiday parties...he would always give me chocolates, but they were cherry cordials and I hate those."

He stopped and took another deep breath. Lily thought perhaps she should say something, although she didn't know if he wanted any kind of condolences and couldn't really imagine giving them. "Everyone hates those."

"Yeah, well. He was a pureblood, you know, but he was just about to propose some new Squib legislation."

And so he had been placed under the Imperius curse and forced to kill the six members of his committee. Someone, one of Voldemort's followers, had gotten into the Ministry of Magic just before midnight.

It seemed to Lily like a rather glaring possibility that one of Voldemort's followers actually worked for the Ministry of Magic, but the _Daily Prophet _had chosen to focus on how someone might have broken in.

"If there are spells that are Unforgivable," she said slowly, "then some magic is wrong in any situation."

"I guess."

"Well, then what about Memory Charms? Why don't they bother you more, why don't they bother Julie? Isn't it a terrible thing to take away someone's memories?"

James narrowed his eyes at her. "Obviously, you think the situation matters. Didn't you used to object to a _Levicorpus _?"

Lily recoiled. "That's not the same at all."

"Well, of course you would say that. Is it different because Mulciber isn't your best friend, or is it different because you're Lily Evans and you can do whatever the hell you want?"

_Best friend _, coming out of his mouth, oozed with contempt.

"Half a minute ago, you were talking about cherry cordials. I'm not talking about Snape." She had to force the name out; she so didn't want to say it.

"I'm not talking about him either! I'm not the one who just almost started a duel and neither is Julie!"

"Well, good for you."

"Great."

She stood there for a moment, waiting for him to make a move, until finally, with an intense rush of irritation—_ I have to do everything myself? _—she spun on her heel and stalked off—a little difficult, when she realized that he was surely headed in the same direction, but he waited politely while she gave the password to the Fat Lady. By the time she saw him climb through the portrait hole, she was on the girls' staircase, and she watched him look around, register Sirius and Julie sitting next to each other, and go over to Remus and Peter. He had a terrific scowl on his face and she stood there, fascinated by it, until a couple of third years almost ran her over and she turned and went up to bed.

* * *

><p>Julie was restless. She dreamed about running and twitched in her sleep. During classes she had to force herself not to fidget. She copied every word the teacher said with her right hand and sat on her left. Quidditch practice was better, as they worked towards the Ravenclaw match—she could never fly fast or far enough to satisfy, but she could try. What she wanted was to hit somebody, but Lily and the thought of her mother kept reminding her that she was suspended. She could not, could not be expelled. She would get her grades and get out, and life beyond Hogwarts was a vast blank.<p>

She didn't even want to be a witch. She was good at magic, and she was already involved—once you've made enemies, you're involved. Lily had saved the career pamphlets given to everyone in fifth year—not because she really wanted them, but because she never threw anything out—and Julie found them one evening and spent a half hour looking through them while the other girls were at dinner. She hadn't realized before how many professions in the magical world involved working for the Ministry. The only thing that seemed at all interesting to her was working as a Curse-Breaker for Gringotts (_ travel, adventure, and danger-related treasure bonuses) _but there was that P on her Arithmancy O.W.L. The worst grade she had ever gotten, and it had to be one that actually mattered.

Niamh was quieter than usual, and she was usually quiet. Over the next few weeks she shadowed Julie, finding her in hallways between classes they didn't share, going to bed at the same time if Julie hadn't disappeared with Sirius. Julie allowed it, secretly liked it. Someone felt safe around her; maybe she could feel safe around herself. Or maybe it wasn't that—there was also the fact that for some reason Niamh, quiet, mousy-haired Niamh, attracted danger, and danger attracted Julie.

During one of their study sessions in which they made no small talk and so usually did not talk at all, Niamh asked Julie, "How many kinds of fear are there?"

This is the real reason Niamh was friends with Julie, not her Herbology grade. Lily or Marlene or Mary might have asked, at this point, if Niamh was feeling all right, or what she was talking about. But Julie thought it over, and after a silence that she did not try to fill by stalling or repeating the question, she answered. "Two. Certain and uncertain."

Niamh chewed on her lip for a moment and then nodded. "Certain and uncertain."

She didn't say anything else that might explain how she understood it, but Julie knew what she herself meant. She was not afraid very often. Usually she was angry. But there was a difference between being afraid because she knew exactly what was going to happen and being afraid because she didn't know what was happening at all. Uncertain was her attic, four knocks on the door, Margaret's face calm and resolved.

For her mother, she realized, that must have been certain. She could not possibly have led those four wizards into her backyard if she had not been trying to leave her own body as far away from her daughters as possible.

Julie was restless. She was angry, and she was sad, and it was growing harder and harder to shake the feeling of powerlessness. And maybe this was the reason she had slept with Sirius in the first place, because it was surely the reason why she was—maybe—getting tired of him.

* * *

><p>"What?" Sirius hissed.<p>

The common room was quiet, and Julie didn't respond. It was just the two of them, and James, sitting and working in the best chairs near the fire. The game with Ravenclaw was the next day, and the rest of the team had responsibly gone to bed early.

She poked him again.

"_What? _"

"Come outside with me."

James snapped his head up and looked from Julie to Sirius, his face carefully neutral.

"I wanna talk."

Sirius glanced towards the windows. It was the middle of April, properly spring, and an hour after dinner the sky was a full, rich shade of blue. They couldn't see them from his chair, but Julie knew that the trees in the Forbidden Forest would be casting long shadows across the front lawn. He did not seem to relish the idea of going outside, and in any case it was barely an hour before their curfew.

Not that Sirius was usually bothered about curfew.

"All right," he said, and pulled himself out of the puffy armchair. James stretched his legs and placed his feet on the vacated cushion, looking up at his friend.

"Shall I wait up?" he said sardonically.

"'Sall right," Sirius mumbled, and Julie rolled her eyes as she stood, angry again, or still angry.

"See you later, Jamie," she said cheekily, and he kicked the backs of her legs in a half-hearted way.

It was wearing on her, this half-friendship with James. She missed feeling truly comfortable with him, before he had started to treat her both carefully and somewhat resentfully, before January.

She and Sirius made their way to the third floor before either spoke.

"What's this about?" he asked.

She placed one hand on his nearer shoulder and wrapped the other around his neck, pushed him against the wall before she kissed him.

It was a long moment. He put his hands around her waist, pulling her closer, pressing the lengths of their bodies together until the buckle of his belt dug into her hip. She could hear a rushing noise in her ears, and when she stepped back she gasped for breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as she stared at him.

"Come on," she said finally, and her voice was steady. She wanted a cigarette.

The hallways were empty, in spite of the hour they still had to wander the castle and grounds without getting in trouble, in spite of the beautiful, bright dusk. The school had changed, since the attacks on the Ministry, maybe even since Julie's own attack on Mulciber or the unknown attack on Niamh: students stayed with their Houses much more than they used to, studying in their common rooms instead of the library, walking to classes in clumps, and even speaking more quietly at meals in the Great Hall. Only Mrs. Norris crossed their path, giving them both a baleful glare.

Their feet were quiet on the flagstones of the Entrance Hall floor. Sirius held the heavy front door open, and Julie murmured some small nicety in response.

The lake was entirely in shadow by now, the water murky and dark. They walked halfway around it before either of them spoke.

They had gotten to the beech tree everyone liked to sit under, much less friendly looking at dusk, and Julie said, "I don't want to do this anymore."

"Don't want to do what?" Sirius asked, very calmly.

"This. You and me."

"You're the one who suggested a walk," he answered, deliberately misunderstanding. She stopped in her tracks, so that he had no choice but to stop walking as well.

"I'm breaking up with you."

He raised his eyebrows. "Were we together?"

She just stared at him.

After a long and prickly silence, he sighed. "Right, fine. Are you going to give me a reason, or are just going to move on to the next bloke?"

"Move on, I think," she said, raising her eyebrows.

"Fraser..."

"Black."

"Did James get to you?"

Julie laughed. "A bit, yeah. Doesn't he get to you?"

Sirius countered her question with one of his own. "So you believe all his rubbish?"

"That you've been shagging me to piss him off? I dunno, yeah, it's a bit too obvious. You've been having a row with him since last year, haven't you?"

He bristled. "That's none of your business."

"And _that's _why I'm chucking you."

"_What _?"

"I don't know anything about you!" she said shrilly, hating herself for saying it.

And he reacted just as she thought he would: took a step backward so that he could look down his nose at her (which he did very well) and laughed.

"What the hell do you need to know about me?" he snapped. "I wouldn't have shagged you in the first place if I thought you wanted to _understand _me—" (he was lying) "—that wasn't what we were about. Is that the kind of girl you are?"

_Is that the kind of girl you are? _The kind who won't just settle for sex, who wants _love _, commitment, the kind of girl who insists on flowers for Valentine's Day and jewelry for her birthday, the kind of girl who either exists expressly to plague men or more likely doesn't exist at all?

That was the question he was asking, mainly to piss her off, and it worked; Julie was seized by a powerful desire to kick him in the shins.

"You twat," she said, "I don't care about _understanding _you—" (lying, also) "—I just..."

His face was so closed up and blank. It drove her to shouting.

"I thought we had something in common! _I thought we were both orphans! _"

That was it.

And she gasped for air, like a surfacing diver. That was what bothered her; Avanti Potter with her ruby earrings, pulling Sirius into her arms, looking at him to see if he had grown. He had a mother after all, and Julie felt as if she had been lied to. He had never really talked to her about his parents, nor she about hers, but she felt betrayed, all the same.

This was a revelation. She had not realized it this whole time, and now it seemed blindingly obvious, so that when Sirius said "What?" she felt another burst of annoyance.

"What are you _talking about _?" he repeated. "You know neither of us is actually an orphan, right?"

She looked at him blankly.

"I don't understand why you're angry at me," he said.

"So neither of us understands shit," she replied. "It's all right, this is what you want, isn't it? Now you can go—go kiss and make up with James."

"Fine," he snapped.

They looked at each other, each with words on the tips of their tongues, and they both hesitated, and then finally Julie just turned around and left. It was no good, there was no point, and she could not make him understand an anger that she couldn't grasp herself.

In the Entrance Hall, she lit a cigarette. She walked numbly up the stairs, barely registering the small groups of students heading back to their dormitories. By the seventh floor, she had smoked the cigarette almost to its end.

"April showers," she said curtly, and the Fat Lady swung up to let her in.

James had, after all, waited up, although Julie had not been gone for very long. He looked surprised to see her by herself.

"Where's Sirius?" he asked as soon as she was close enough to hear him.

Julie shrugged. "He'll be in soon."

James looked at her oddly; then he reached up his hand so that she could pass him the stub of her cigarette. He took one long drag and passed it back. She looked at it, imagined the place his lips had touched it. There was almost nothing left of it, and she tossed it in the fire.

"See you in the morning." They had their game with Ravenclaw the next day.

Lily, Marlene and Mary were already in the dorm, sitting on their beds. Julie snapped the door shut, reached blindly for the nearest bureau, (Marlene's, by a happy accident) swept up a bottle of nail varnish and threw it at the wall behind her bed. It broke with a crack, and peach splattered down the stone walls.

"What the _fuck _," Marlene said, jumping to her feet.

Lily looked up without moving. "You going to clean that up?"

Julie stared at the wall, and then stared at Lily, whose eyes narrowed into slits.

"Are you. Going. To clean. That up."

In the painful silence that followed, Mary slid her books onto the floor, got up and left the room.

* * *

><p>The sky was fully dark by the time Sirius walked back, but he saw with a funny pang in his stomach that James was still up, his face lit by the low-burning fire. He looked up at Sirius and smiled.<p>

He was angry at Julie, but he wasn't that angry. She had told him to make up with James, and that was what he would do.

"Go to bed, you have a match tomorrow."

James looked at him, searching his face. Julie was always doing that too, trying to figure him out. Tonight, even James was getting nothing from him.

"Everything all right?" James asked, getting to his feet.

"Fine, yeah," said Sirius, and he cuffed James lightly around the back of the head. "Come to bed."

But in the middle of the night Sirius snapped awake from an old nightmare, heart pounding in his ears. His mouth was dry and foul-tasting. The dream was less sound or sight than just colors, all those dark greens and musty, moth-eaten reds, the colors of the house where he grew up.

He kicked the blankets away and went over to the window, poured himself a glass of water and drank it, looking out over the grounds. Somebody—probably Remus—was snoring softly behind him.

He crossed the room and left, closing the door quietly.

The common room was dark and silent and not entirely empty. Sirius flopped onto a couch, staring at the ceiling. When his sight adjusted all the way, he flailed into a half-sitting position and swore. Niamh Fairchild was cross-legged on the couch across from him, staring at him.

"Shh," she said.

Obligingly, he whispered, "Fuck, fuck, what the fuck, Fairchild?"

She blinked, once. Her eyes were luminous in the half-moonlight trickling in from the windows.

"You were in my dream," she said.

_"What?" _

"I know," she said, "I wasn't expecting it either. In retrospect it seems kind of obvious...It's always like that...

"And you didn't look like yourself."

He pushed himself from his elbows to his hands. He still had no idea what was happening. Niamh Fairchild was not someone he spoke to other than across the dinner table, to ask her to pass the pudding, and even then very rarely.

"And there was someone else—red hair—"

He scowled. "Which one?"

"I don't know, a little boy..."

"What?" Neither of the options he had thought of were little boys, and he was more lost than ever. It was time to gracefully extricate himself from this conversation. "The fuck are you _on, _Fairchild? I'm going to bed."

He stumbled to his feet.

"You have a brother," she said.

He stopped, turned. The moon silvered one edge of her face.

"Would you die for him?"

And because it was so dark, and in the dark he could tell the truth, he said, "Yes."

"Would you kill for him?"

There was a pause, and then he said, "No."

Niamh sighed in the dark. "It's good to know that sort of thing," she said softly, and she got up and walked past him up the girls' staircase.

Alone, Sirius put his face in his hands for a moment. _You're not my brother, _he heard Regulus say, and, _Why can't you just stay, why did you have to say that, why are you always starting fights, why are you always fucking up? _

Christ. He had started this day planning to actually study Charms for once, and here he was, standing in the common room at one in the fucking morning, tearing up thinking about his shit of a little brother.

Improbably, there was a cigarette in the pocket of his pajama pants. Julie must have given it to him at some point. He had never said no to her when she offered him one, but he hated them. He had tried smoking in fifth year and found it boring and slightly disgusting. He hadn't stuck it out long enough to get over the constant coughing, let alone achieve Julie's unpleasant but undeniable glamour.

He rolled it around in his fingers for a moment. He could drop it in the fireplace, but making dramatic gestures in an empty room didn't really appeal to him. Finally he just put it back in his pocket and left.

* * *

><p>It was one of those clear, cold spring mornings, perfect conditions, and James felt pleased with himself and the world as he opened the great front door of the castle. He had gone to find Julie, as the rest of the team was assembled at the breakfast table, and it took so much less time than anyone would expect (magical maps did come in handy) that he could sit with her for a few moments. She was sitting on the front steps of the castle, smoking, and because nobody had seen her since last night, he assumed it was not her first cigarette.<p>

"Why did you start?" he asked, settling himself on the same step.

"Dunno."

"No, come on. To bother your mum?"

Julie shifted her weight. She had never tried to bother her mum in her life. "Not really. It was Amy who was bothered. Margaret never said anything about it." She tapped ashes onto the step. "I think she knew the whole time, though. But she never said anything about it, except for the night before...the night before," she finished, pretending that was a sensible way to finish a sentence.

James was at a loss for words, suffering a loss of imagination, mothered as he was. But he subverted her pretense by thumping her on the back. Julie was silent as well, thinking, perhaps about everything else her mother had never said. He was sorry for bringing it up.

"So you're friends with Evans now," James said, immediately cursing himself for saying anything. Evans had asked him enough times that, sometimes, even he wondered why he couldn't keep his fat, stupid mouth shut.

Julie let out a short, unfriendly laugh.

"What's that mean, then?"

"Lily isn't feeling too warmly towards me at the moment."

"Oh?"

"She screamed at me for half an hour last night."

"Christ, Scottie. What did you do?"

She cut her eyes at him. "How do you know it was my fault?"

"Scottie," he said, leaning back on the step above and squinting at her. The morning sun was very bright, and he put a hand over his eyes. "What did you do?"

She just rolled her eyes and sat thinking for a minute. Then, "Unrelated," she said brightly, "I broke up with Sirius."

"What!"

James tried to sit up, banged his elbow, and slid down a step, all while managing to keep an accusing glare fixed on Julie. She glanced at him coolly.

"I thought you'd be happy."

"And why'd you think that?" he snapped, rubbing his elbow ruefully.

"I didn't think you wanted us to go out in the first place."

"I didn't want you to break up with him, either," said James. "I didn't want you to go out because I didn't want you to dump him!"

"How do you know it was my fault?" she asked, echoing her earlier question. This time, she was pleased; her lips curled into a thin, lopsided smile.

"Juli_a _," he said, rubbing his temple, thinking fervently _please, God, can my life not get more complicated? _

"Unrelated," she said again, after a long pause, "I borrowed your scales that day you skived off Potions."

"Fraser, do not tell me what you're about to tell me."

"How much did those cost, anyway? Get pewter next time, you rich bastard."

* * *

><p>"GRYFFINDOR! GRYFFINDOOOORRRR!"<p>

The pounding beat of the dance music, the gleeful yells of her housemates, and the sleepless rage of the night before were building up to a vicious ache at Lily's temples; she wandered vaguely through the post-match party, wondering if she should go to the library or just give up on the whole day and go straight to bed.

She shouldn't have even watched the match. Marlene always wanted her to come. She was happy enough to support her friend, but this time, watching Julie and James pound the Ravenclaw team into the dust somehow outweighed the fun of the game.

She liked Quidditch, had always liked Quidditch, fondly remembered playing four-a-side with the other Gryffindors in second year (boys against girls, Mary abstained) and she hated Julie and James for making it impossible to watch, and she knew that she didn't really hate either of them, and she hated herself for that. Just a little bit.

"Evans!" said a loud voice. An accompanying arm dropped onto her shoulder. Lily pushed the arm off without looking.

"Black, I'm tired, I'm pissed off, don't make it worse."

"Ah, come on, Evans," said Sirius, "You need a drink."

Lily crossed her arms, turning to look at him. "What I need," she said calmly, "is an aspirin. And an end to this idiotic party."

Sirius had a bottle in his own hand, ostensibly butterbeer, but with a sharp whiff of alcohol clinging to it, and he offered it to Lily.

She stared at his hand. "Why are you talking to me, Black?"

He shrugged. "You're pissed off. I'm pissed off. It's a fucking victory party. It's just the two of us."

Lily sighed deeply and took the bottle. Over Sirius' shoulder, she could see James, Marlene and Brandon Douglas standing on a table, reenacting dramatic highlights of the match. Someone was screeching with laughter. Julie hadn't bothered to spike her butterbeer; she was standing with Will Preston, drinking straight from a bottle of muggle alcohol.

Lily watched her take a deep swig and couldn't find it in herself to mirror the action. She handed Sirius' bottle back. "'Sallright, thanks."

He rolled his eyes at her. "Evans, why are you such a priss?"

She was so, so sick of all the bullshit. She was sick of everyone she knew, she was just sick of everything. "Okay, Black, thanks very much, thanks for the great time, I'm just going to go the fuck to bed—Fuck. No, don't look—never mind."

Because Sirius had already turned around and seen what she was seeing. Julie and Will wrapped around each other, kissing, her hand loosely holding the bottle behind his back. He didn't look for long, just turned back to Lily with his eyebrows slightly raised.

_This is the stupidest, most pointless, stupid _, thought Lily. _I hate boarding school and I hate girls' dormitories and I hate this party. _She had not just lost patience, she had lost any memory of patience. More than anything she wished she could just be left in peace.


End file.
